The good, the bad, and the ugly from the Rams Week 5 matchup vs the Eagles

The Bad

Remember when I said that separating the bad from the ugly was hard to determine? Well you're about to see why. Some could argue some of what I am about to mention could fall into the ugly category, but I think some of the things in this category can be fixed this year whereas some of the stuff in the ugly category may be a persistent problem.

Tackling

Why can't the LA defense properly tackle its opponents? You would think something this fundamental would not be an issue for an NFL team, yet for the Rams it is. One of the biggest things I have noticed when the Rams defensive backs try to tackle, they just lower their shoulder and try to lay a hit on the ball carrier instead of wrapping them up. Is this something that is being taught to the players? Or are they just overconfident? Whatever the root cause is, it needs to be addressed yesterday.

I did a little bit of research utilizing PFF to examine our major players on defense against this week's matchup. The total number of missed tackles among these players was 11. That's right, our major players on defense accounted for 11 missed tackles against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 5. The fact that I didn't check every player probably means that number is even higher. This is just an unacceptable rate to miss tackles in the NFL if a team wants to be competitive, especially when playing a team that was just in the Super Bowl.

So the missed tackles in Week 5 alone got me thinking. How many missed tackles do our major players have on the season so far? Of the players I counted missed tackles for, the Los Angeles Rams have missed at least 51 tackles on the season so far. That equates to at least an average of 10 missed tackles per game. That is completely and utterly unacceptable.