5 reasons to look for much better LA Rams defense in 2023

Reason V: Rams have plenty of time to focus

One of the greatest challenges to the Rams 2022 NFL season is that the entire Rams organization had barely ended their Super Bowl victory celebration before it was time to hire new coaches, assess the team's roster, and vet future draft prospects. In the case of both players and coaches, there is an intensity, a burden of competitive exertion, that comes from scaling the mountain for the opportunity to hoist a Lombardi Trophy over their heads and celebrating the victory.

But after that moment of sheer physical and mental exhaustion, everyone involved in getting there has to decompress quickly. It's a huge toll on everyone who is cohesively joined at unifying to achieve that type of ultimate success. Afterwards, the body needs time to heal. The mind needs time to wander free and unemcumbered. But, most of all, the inbox and message machine need to be ignored long enough to convert the daily drudgery into acts of passion once more.

Rams finally get to decompress

I am not convinced that the Rams allowed themselves enough time to want to dive back into the grind in 2020, and am fairly convinced that not enough time lapsed before the Rams had to find coaching replacements for OC Kevin O'Connell and TE Coach Wes Phillips, persuade OLB Von Miller to re-sign with the team, and return to an NFL Draft where the Rams first selection occured at the 104th overall pick.

Surging to meet temporary work demands is commonplace. Anyone who has worked in retail knows that hours expand over the holiday shopping season. Manufacturing laborers know that big orders mean long hours and overtime. Even tax accountants know that come tax season, office hours can balloon to 20 hours a day. But that is only possible because everyone knows that when the surge is over, everyone and everything can get back to normal.

This year, there was no holiday shopping season for the Rams organization. And so, nobody has been losing sleep and working long hours in the office, practice field, or gymnasium after the team played their last game on January 8, 2023.