After a 16-sack performance in 2 games, how can the Rams D upgrade in 2025?

2025 NFL Draft - offense or defense?

While we debate and discuss what the team's strategy might be this offseason, I want to be very clear. The LA Rams front office, led by Grand Master GM Les Snead, has been hammering out this off-season's strategy for months. So we are lagging already, and will likely never truly catch up. But we do have the team's history, and can make somewhat educated guesses where the team will likely invest this offseason in terms of positions.

So what are the team's needs heading into the 2025 NFL Draft? We did a deep dive, and came up with:

Must haves (in no particular order):

• Tight end
• Quarterback
• Offensive tackle
• Explosive playmaker (RB/TE/WR)
• Nose Tackle
• Shutdown CB
• Inside linebacker

So how does that line up with this draft class?

With the draft class bursting with NFL-caliber talent at running back, defensive tackle, and tight end, all of which align with the team's needs heading into the draft, the Rams can do a quick pitstop at defensive tackle and inside linebacker in the draft and emerge stronger than ever.

In 2020, the Rams roster was in a similar situation, with a draft class bursting with talent at similar positions. Curiously, the team did not draft any defensive linemen. Rather, the team signed four defensive linemen after the 2020 NFL Draft. Will the Rams follow a similar pattern this year?

The team loves to carve out its own path, often running against the grain.

Still, that does not preclude the team addressing the positions depleted this offseason by expiring contracts in free agency. If the price is right, I would love to see the team re-sign a majority of players for the 2025 NFL season. But does that give this team an upgrade? Or does extending players merely accept the bar set in 2024 at a level of as good as it gets?

Perhaps both can be true.

Consider this: The Rams' defense was playing for first-year Defensive Coordinator Chris Shula. As with any new coordinator, his first season was as much about his learning about his defense and players as his players were learning his scheme. There is a natural, almost organic, gravity of improvement waiting for players in 2025 if they simply return with a season's worth of experience.

And the mix and match personnel that the team had to endure as Shula experimented with the right personnel to run his defense is long behind him now.