3 former Rams coaches who are killing it with their new teams

Evero puts the D back into the Denver defense

When the Denver Broncos hired former LA Rams secondary coach Ejiro Evero to assume the reins as their new defensive coordinator, I was less than optimistic about his chances to succeed there. Not because I doubted his ability, but because he was taking over a defense that had the oversight of one of the brightest NFL defensive minds on the planet, Vic Fangio.

But by the end of the 2021 NFL season, the Broncos’ defense had fallen to 25th place among NFL defenses in terms of yards allowed. Of course, they remained awfully stingy in terms of points allowed, as their 18.9 points per game remained good enough to finish among the NFL’s Top-3. So the Broncos’ defense could improve, but it had plenty of room to get worse as well.

To that point, Evero had been one of the reasons for the Rams’ superb secondary. He was not just great at assembling a secondary to fit the specifications of multiple defensive coordinators, but he was also very good at getting raw but talented but inexperienced young players to achieve an NFL-caliber level of play quickly.

Evero helped develop raw young Rams DBs

He worked on getting the most out of rookie Taylor Rapp in 2019 when the team lost then-veteran John Johnson for the season. He helped get rookies Terrell Burgess and Jordan Fuller to perform well in their rookie season in 2020. Fuller became the starter, and Burgess was a key rotational player until he fell to injury.  He took over for the entire secondary in 2021, the year that the Rams won Super Bowl LVI with a patchwork secondary.

Today, he has the Denver Broncos defense playing at an incredible pace. The Broncos defense has become far more balanced, ranking in the NFL’s Top-3 in both yards allowed and points allowed. Not only that, but he is doing so with a team effort, and not simply by relying upon the stars to get the job done.

The Broncos are struggling, but not due to that dominating defense. And that is thanks to the passion and energy of their defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero.  But we have one more to examine.