Re-signing LA Rams ILB Travin Howard is big deal at small cost

The LA Rams are past the sheetrock assembly of the roster now and are focusing more upon the mosaic tiles necessary to create the roster capable of winning a Super Bowl. Not just any, but Super Bowl LVI, projected to be played February 2022 at the LA Rams home field of SoFi Stadium. To get there, and win there, the Rams will need a 53-man roster that can contribute top to bottom. Inside linebacker Travin Howard can do exactly that, and he re-signed to play for the Rams in the 2021 NFL season.

The addition of Howard will be underestimated by many, but it’s one more roster piece that has been fitted into place. He was slated to be a starting inside linebacker for the team in 2020 but failed to answer the bell due to a horrifically-timed injury that ended his season before it began. In his place, the Rams started Kenny Young, he never seemed to grow into the role last season.

Now Howard can re-earn the starting role. Howard is 6-foot-1 and weighs 219 pounds. With just 102 defensive snaps from 2019 and 329 snaps on special teams from that year, Howard was one of the more experienced inside linebackers competing for a role in 2020. He played in all 16 games, primarily as special teams on coverage units. Despite light work, he put up a respectable 22 tackles, something he never seemed to miss succeeding at once he got a bead on the ball carrier.

More than meets the eye

He was also pretty adept at defending the pass as well.  Targetted 15 times, he only permitted nine completions. On three occasions, he was able to get a hand on the ball. That’s a 20 percent rate on deflected the pass, an incredibly robust rate. And it was that efficiency over the middle that seemed to be a vulnerability to the Rams 2020 defense.

Howard may have helped tremendously in that area.

In fact, Howard fits the hybrid defender so popular nowadays. But rather than be a large safety who can spend more time crowding the line of scrimmage, Howard is a linebacker who can remain on the field to cover running backs and tight ends. That allows the Rams to opt into base 3-4 defense more, and confuse the quarterback by flipping to an unexpected defensive pattern out of the vanilla-disguise.

While he is only signed for one more year, the hope is that he will be re-signing in 2022 as well. He will likely earn enough playing time to earn a restricted free agent status in 2022. The Rams retained both RFAs this year, Johnny Mundt and Darious Williams. Even if Howard plays lights out (he could do very well in Raheem Morris’ defense), he will likely not be a priority free agent by other NFL teams.

Howard can play himself into a big deal for 2022 with the Rams by a huge 2021 season. And re-signing him is a big deal. He is an ideal fit for what the Rams want to do at linebacker this year.