Defense Falls Apart For Los Angeles Rams in Loss to New Orleans Saints

The defense of the Los Angeles Rams was embarrassing to watch during the team’s 49-21 loss to the New Orleans Saints.

There were plenty of mixed emotions for the return of Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams as he faced off against his former team in the New Orleans Saints in Week 12, but nobody could have predicted the return to be this bad.

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To say Drew Brees and the Saints’ offense had a field day against their former defensive coordinator would be a major understatement as the Rams suffered another devastating loss 49-21. Los Angeles showed a little bit of hope on defense in the first half thanks to Aaron Donald, but at the end of the day, New Orleans was just too much to handle on offense.

Not only did Brees complete 28 of 36 passes for 310 yards with four touchdowns, but the future Hall of Famer even added a rushing touchdown of his own in the second quarter to give him five total on the game. After back-to-back losses by a combined five points, Brees knew the Saints were desperate for a win against the Rams to keep their playoff hopes alive in the NFC.

On top of the strong performance by Brees, Los Angeles had trouble containing Michael Thomas in the passing game as the rookie caught nine passes for 108 yards with two touchdowns. As for the running game, Mark Ingram had one of his best performances of the 2016 season after rushing for 146 yards on just 14 carries to go along with two scores (one through the air).

On a positive note, the Rams have to feel a little better about the potential displayed by Jared Goff in his second career start after this year’s top pick threw three touchdown passes in the first half. Of course, Goff still experienced some of the typical rookie struggles by throwing a costly interception along with a fumble.

Hopefully, this will turn out to be a simple fluke performance by the Rams’ defense when considering how much they have carried this team over the last few weeks. If the defense can bounce back from this disaster of a performance along with Goff’s confidence level increasing, maybe Los Angeles will actually have a chance to win a few more games before season’s end.

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