LA Rams: 3 Most Pleasant Surprises on LA Rams defense

LA Rams: 3 Most Pleasant Surprises on LA Rams defense

While the LA Rams have been pulling together a 3-1 season, I have spent a lot of time this season so far touching on the defense. It’s been surprisingly very good. LA Rams head coach Sean McVay is known as an offensive guru to the game of professional football.  After former defensive coordinator Wade Phillips left the team, people had to wonder how good the defense would be especially with a young rookie defensive coordinator Brandon Staley taking over.

The Rams defense, outside of the fiasco against the Buffalo Bills in week three (when Jordan Fuller went down with an injury), has been borderline elite. They held an explosive Dallas Cowboys offense to just 17 points in week one. The Bills are the only team to score over 20 so far this season. They have handled difficult offenses with ease so far and shown good leverage and technical ability.

Don’t doubt this defense

You would hope that after paying defensive tackle Aaron Donald and cornerback Jalen Ramsey and making those two players the highest-paid players at their positions that the defense would pull itself together. They have – and it’s because of these surprises that those investments are paying off.

Overall, this defense does not have the feel of one fresh off the drawing board. The Rams have done a good job of hitting the ground running with their defense so far.  To emphasize that, here are the three pleasant surprises on the Rams defense that have been keys to the success that the Rams have seen early.

S Fuller emerging early in his rookie season

Safety Jordan Fuller has only played in three of the first four games of the season due to a shoulder injury, but we will start with our man Fuller. I’ve written extensively about his fit in this defense and how he has turned out to be the missing piece of the defense. Clearly, the Rams defense missed Fuller flying around the field during their 17-9 win over the Giants, and his impact was critical following the collapse of the Rams defense against the Buffalo Bills.

Fuller has 17 tackles in his limited action. He played eight snaps against the Bills before sustaining his shoulder injury, and the Bills offense had already started scheming around him and trying to keep the ball away from him. In the previous two weeks, Fuller had played all but one snap.

What has worked for the Rams and Fuller

Fuller is a bigger-bodied defensive back, listed at 6’2″ and 203 pounds. Fuller isn’t the most athletic guy (as we have talked about on this website) or the fastest defender on the field. The Rams had found the perfect use for him, using Fuller as more of a linebacker with the ability to drop into deep coverage.

Fuller’s biggest impact was adding more versatility to the secondary and their ability to mix-and-match coverage. The Rams loved the impact that he brought to the field, because of his hard-hitting style as well as his smart, reactive athleticism that allows him to make plays in space.

Fuller is questionable to return to action against the Washington Football Team this Sunday.

CB Williams showing ball-hawking skills

Defensive back Darious Williams has been another pleasant surprise on the Rams side of things. Williams came on late last season, starting the last 3 games of last season. Now, Williams is the second player in NFL history to intercept four or more passes in his first seven NFL starts since the 1970 merger.

The important role that Williams plays is the opposite side of Jalen Ramsey. Ramsey is a shutdown cornerback, which means that across the league he is widely regarded as an avoidable player on the defense. Offenses scheme around avoidable players like an elite linebacker, a fierce pass rusher, or a shutdown cornerback. That means that the receiver that Ramsey isn’t covering, normally the one Williams is covering, will see more targets because of the player assigned the coverage.

Potential downfall

The one thing that is a potential downfall with Williams is his lack of size, making him a mismatch against bigger receivers. Williams is just 5’9″ and 187 pounds, which means a 6’2″ receiver creates a significant size advantage that NFL teams will look to use against him. Lucky for Williams and the Rams, there aren’t many teams in the league that have the receiver depth to create those mismatches.

Regardless, Williams isn’t just picking footballs off. He’s making plays on the football and is building a reputation in his own right. Pretty soon, opposing teams are going to have to look for other players to throw the ball to, because these guys are very hard to beat.

LB Kiser anchoring the middle of the field

The linebacker was already supposed to be a position of weakness for the Rams entering the season. Instead, it’s been an absolute strength and a lot of that is because of Micah Kiser, the leading tackler currently on this team.

Let’s give a little bit of a background on Kiser for a minute. Our focused star today was a fifth-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, selected as the 147th overall pick out of the University of Virginia. He appeared in all 16 games as a rookie, mostly as a special teams contributor. He suffered a torn pectoral injury in training camp and missed the entire 2019 season before coming back to the depleted linebackers group in 2020.

Stepping up to his turn

Kiser was asked to do a very difficult job in the first quarter of the 2020 NFL season: Step up as a starting linebacker and anchor the inside of the defense. Be the heart that pumps the blood of this defense. That’s what Kiser has done, playing every snap of the team’s first three games. He missed some time against the Giants due to a groin injury, but he’s been electric on the field. He has a hit on the quarterback, a team-high 32 tackles, three pass deflections, and a forced fumble.

I’m excited to see where Kiser and this Rams defense can go. They have shown the potential to be great, holding the electric Dallas Cowboys offense to just 17 points, the Philadelphia Eagles to 19 points, and the New York Giants to nine points, and without a single touchdown.

Kiser is questionable to play due to the groin injury this week against the Washington Football Team. But so far there have been no reports of serious injury. He will be back.