3 reasons why OLB Michael Hoecht is due for the Floyd effect in 2024

I: He has been targeted more frequently than any other teammate in pass coverage

While every player on the LA Rams defense is tasked to perform whatever the position and situation calls for throughout the course of a football game, there is a misconception that all players, and all roles, are created equally on a team's roster. I can assure you that they are not. In many ways, the same decoys and complex blocking schemes found in the offensive playbook have equally complex and sophisticated counterparts in a defensive playbook.

For defensive linemen, there are those whose primary task is to stuff the run and gobble blockers, preventing offensive linemen from impairing the effectiveness of linebackers who lay in wait to make the plays. So to there are those pass rushers who can pin their ears back and race after the quarterback, while others must be content to hold their ground, remaining in position to stop a fleeing quarterback from advancing the football on a scramble.

In a 3-4 odd man front defense, invariably one outside linebacker is tasked with rushing the passer, while the other is tasked with pass coverage. So why mention that here when discussing Hoecht? He was ruthlessly tasked with pass coverage. Why does that make a difference? One of the main reasons that former Rams OLB Leonard Floyd ascended to become a significant force in the Rams pass rush is that the team removed him from so many pass coverage duties. Floyd's number of targets dropped from 17 to seven when he joined the Rams. That allowed Floyd's sack totals to skyrocket from 3.0 to 10.5.

Throughout his NFL career, Floyd has never been targeted more frequently than 17 times. Michael Hoecht was targeted twice as often in 2023. But do the number of targets truly correspond to an outside linebacker's effectiveness at getting after the quarterback? Let's check out the data from 2023 to see if there is any relational correspondence.

So what does the above data table reveal about the way the Rams defensive scheme exposed Hoecht to an incessant onslaught of passes targeting him? As you can see by the data table above, no other top-tier outside linebacker was targeted anywhere close to the number of passes thrown at Hoecht. Hoecht was targeted anywhere from twice to more than ten times more frequently than his peers. And yet, he managed not only to keep completions under 80 percent, but he put up more tackles than any other top-tier outside linebacker in 2023.

Hoecht's limits in 2023 are known, yes. But his ability to start in the NFL is a known fact too. The reputation among some fans that Hoecht is inept or a defensive liability was simply an optical illusion. The Rams' defensive scheme placed him into pass coverage excessively. So what can the team do to correct that flaw?