Here’s Brett Stuter…
Where are those halftime adjustments?
In 2020, the one thing that stood out about the Rams defense was the miraculous ways that the team was able to go into the locker room at halftime and emerge as a completely different defense. Yards were tougher to come by, and points were almost unheard of. In the first five games of 2020, the defense surrendered just 23 points in the second half of all five games combined. In 2021? The defense has given up 55 points in the second half of just the first four games.
There is your bogey. There is the trouble. The LA Rams are not adjusting whatsoever to what offenses are doing to them. It’s already cost them one game. It will likely cost them more.
This may be the same basic scheme. It may be a defense that has many of the same rotating coverage concepts. But we know that offensive coordinators were able to decipher the cryptic disguises and score points on the Rams in the first half. But after halftime? The Rams re-encrypted the defense, and offenses were left in confusion.
That is not happening this year. Right now, I’m not even certain that the Rams are failing miserably at that one area where they excelled a year ago.
Halftime adjustments. It’s both an exercise in humility (they are beating us here and there), as well as an opportunity to shine (we can do this and do that to stop them). It’s one of the key missing ingredients from the 2021 NFL defense. The disappointing part to all of that? That one is on the coaching staff, folks.
