5 ways DC Brandon Staley unlocks DT Aaron Donald potential

I: Defensive line stunts

Hit ’em where they ain’t.  Simple enough to say, but awfully complex to put into practice.  Unless of course, you are Denver Broncos head coach Vic Fangio. Through his career, he often inherited defenses of young players, who had little NFL defensive experience. What they lacked in experience, however, they made up for with speed, athleticism, and the ability to be coached.

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In a December 2016 article by the Athletics.com Dan Durkin, he described how Fangio took a young core of defenders and used defensive line stunts to create quarterback pressure.  Fangio took those young defenders to school by giving them a disguised look, thwarting offenses aiming at defenders who were no longer there or were moving to new positions. Oftentimes, Fangio would align in a 3-4-4 and stunt the defensive front to swap assignments. The confusion created in the offensive line allowed inferior defenders to have big games.

The Rams defense is perfectly suited for defensive line stunts. The quarterback, and virtually all the offensive linemen, will track DT Aaron Donald on virtually every play.  With the defensive secondary in place to support the front seven, Staley can run circus stunts on the defensive line in 2020.

Donald is versatile enough to line up at nose tackle, as a defensive tackle, or on either side of the defensive line.  Wherever he goes, the offensive follows. That sets up Staley to stung Donald to the interior from a starting position on the outside of the defense.  It also sets up the Rams to make use of second-year defender Greg Gaines to help with run defense.