DC Chris Shula delivers a modern NFL miracle turning lead into defensive gold

Do you believe that you get what you pay for? If so, then this article about the LA Rams defense, and what first-year defensive coordinator Chris Shula continues to inspire the group to do is nothing short of a modern-day NFL miracle. The Rams are not the first team that a casual NFL fan thinks of when it comes to stalwart defenses, but don't let that dissuade you from digging past the young inexperienced veneer. Well, grab your crowbar and claw hammer, and let's rip off that veneer.

The Rams defense needed time to coalesce. This was simply a group of veterans and rookies thrown together with a common theme of 'affordability,' And even the presence of former Rams veterans like CB Darious Williams and S John Johnson III only sanded the edges off a secondary that was reconstructed to DC Chis Shula's meticulous specifications. With a new defensive coordinator, the Rams defense accepted a new set of goals.

Those new goals were to terrorize opposing quarterbacks, and to create turnovers.

Of course, every plan good or bad must overcome hurdles. And the first hurdle for every NFL team is the question: How do we pay for that? After all, the LA Rams have a lot of money invested in the offensive side of the football. Per Spotrac.com, the Rams have the most expensive offense in the NFL in 2024 with an estimated cost of over $174 million. The inverse must therefore also be true, and in the case of the Rams defense, that proves to be the case. The Rams are spending an estimated $32.67 million on the defensive side of the football.

While the Rams hired Chris Shula to be their new defensive coordinator, he had several legs up going into his first NFL season as the engineer of the defensive playbook. For starters, he worked with legendary Rams defensive coaches like Wade Phillips, Brandon Staley, and Raheem Morris on the Rams coaching staff. But there is much more going for him.

Because he was on the coaching staff, he had first-hand knowledge of what each defensive coordinator wanted to do with the defense, and how it worked out. He also built an extensive database of challenges and solutions for the defense at any given point of time.

But even more than that, he possessed an intimate working knowledge of the Rams roster, including the strengths, weaknesses, and coachability of every player on the team. So when the front office reached out to Shula to determine the specifications for his players to optimize the type of defense he wanted to run, he was able to share incredible details. That allowed the front office to add talented players on the cheap by loading up on rookies in the 2024 NFL Draft.

To the tune of less than $33 million in 2024.

That is phenomenally cheap. So how are the Rams getting golden defensive production out of lead priced players? Ah, that's the miracle after all, isn't it?