LA Rams: Will this be Sebastian Joseph Day’s curtain call?

Steady improvement

Joseph-Day is not unique in his career for the LA Rams so far. Rather, his story is rather mainstream for this team. He arrived on the team in the sixth round of the 2018 NFL Draft, hearing his name with the 195th overall pick. At 6-foot-4 and 310-pounds, he arrived with the right size, but with a rawness that his draft profile concluded would require more muscle mass. Of course, he was given the opportunity to develop. That’s the Rams way it seems.

Although he made the cut and remained on the team’s 53-man roster, he was inactive for all 16 games. Of course, that was not wasted time in the least. He was watching and learning. He was constantly asking questions of veterans Michael Brockers, Ndamukong Suh, and yes, even Aaron Donald. Asking, and learning, and practicing, and training.  By the end of the 2018 season, the Rams did not bring back Suh. Instead, the team tapped Bash to take over on the defensive line.

While he was the starting defensive lineman in both 2019 and 2020, he was not pulling the majority of defensive snaps. The Rams run a 3-4 defensive front. The toll taken on the front three is tremendous, so the Rams compensate by a rapid rotation.  The result is that Sebastian Joseph Day pulls fewer than half of the defensive snaps in one season. Still, he has managed to put up respectable production despite the limits to his on-field time.

His role for the team, at the nose tackle position, is not to sack the quarterback. With the growth of mobile quarterbacks, the nose tackle is tasked with maintaining an even pocket that will collapse on the quarterback. As soon as Bash dislodges from the offensive linemen, a mobile quarterback can break to the running lane where he is no longer located. Sometimes, the key to the defense is not to play selfishly, but rather to maintain the responsibility of the assigned role.