LA Rams defector dossier: Will OLB Samson Ebukam impact 49ers D?

It falls to reason that if you are going to play on the same defense as LA Rams All-Pro defensive lineman Aaron Donald, that you are going to notice that one of the secrets to his play is that ever-increasing abundance of power. He’s an NFL version of a Power Ranger, a guy that seems to morph into a semi-super-hero and fight the onslaught of offensive linemen that took aim against him the entire game

All that time, his teammate Samson Ebukam noticed. Throughout his four seasons with the LA Rams, outside linebacker Samson Ebukam filled his role of rotating in on the defense. When he wasn’t playing, he watched, made note of what his teammates were doing, and then tried to infuse those successes with his own game.

He wasn’t bad at what he did. He simply hit a plateau with the LA Rams. He was Steady-Freddie with the defense, a guy who may not show up on the football field on the post-game stats recap, but he would always show up for the game. In fact, he never missed a game in four years with the Rams. For the San Francisco 49ers, a team that has scrambled for two of the past three seasons with a significant number of injuries, that fact alone might have drawn them to sign Ebukam in free agency. They did very quickly in fact.

But the San Francisco 49ers do not see Ebukam as their outside linebacker in 2021.

So Ebukam left a 3-4 defense from the Rams, and will line up where exactly? He stands 6-foot-3 and weighed 245-pounds. That’s too small for a defensive end, even the high-motor fast burst types. He can play outside linebacker in terms of some pass defense, but I’m not convinced that he is the guy to set the edge. He likes to take an inside route on his pass rush, which opens up a lot of real estate for a sharp-eyed receiver, running back, or quarterback.