LA Rams: Evolution of NT role and 2021 impact to Rams defense

Installation

The LA Rams set 6-foot-4, 287-pound Ethan Westbrooks up as their starting nose tackle in 2017. While Westbrooks played between Michael Brockers and Aaron Donald, he was an inflexible player, relegated to stuffing running plays up the middle and slipping inside for the occasional quarterback sack. The LA Rams needed more from the role and signed free agent defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh in 2018. Suh opened a lot of options to the Rams defensive front.

And so, that allowed Phillips to set up his 3-4 defense with the gap responsibilities of a 4-3. Phillips truly has not gotten just how good of a defensive schemer he truly was.  His 3-4 actually pushed a five-man defensive front appearance to the offense, and that forced offensive lines to slide to the strong side of the defense, and set up Aaron Donald for one on ones. It was no wonder that 2018 was Donald’s career-high sack total of 20.5 in one year.  Donald wins one-on-ones.

But Suh was not a resident of Los Angeles, rather more like a rental.  In 2019 the Rams needed to reconfigure once more. On this season, the Rams converted the even five-man fronts into a four-man front with three linebackers.  You can see how that appeared in this video link right here. Here is another video from 2019 with similar schemes.  Ever willing to change his defensive scheme to match his personnel, LA Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips got a lot of mileage out of his defense. Perhaps one of his last acts was to promote 6-foot-4 310-pound Sebastian Joseph Day to the nose tackle/defensive tackle position.