When it comes to the Rams pass rush, the whole is greater than sum of parts

LA Rams pass rush concentrated in a few performers in 2023

While the LA Rams generated 41 quarterback sacks in 2023, the burden of getting after the quarterback last season was limited due to too few players generating pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Of all players on the teams defense in 2023, only nine players contributed to the quarterback sack total.

Of those players, only five defenders contributed more than 2.0 quarterback sacks in 2023. They were (in no particular order): NT Kobie Turner (9.0 sacks), DT Aaron Donald (8.0 sacks), OLB Byron Young (8.0 sacks), ILB Ernest Jones (4.5 sacks), and OLB Michael Hoecht (6.0 sacks). Compounding the defense's efforts to improve at rushing the passer is the retirement of Aaron Donald.

So where did the team go wrong?

The challenge for the team was two-fold last season. Players who had plenty of opportunities in terms of defensive snaps were simply not very productive. At the same time, players who appeared to be rather productive did not get a lot of opportunities in terms of defensive snaps.

Let's look at a player who was productive, but limited in 2023. 2023's Mr. Irrelevant, DE Desjuan Johnson, made the most of his 102 defensive snaps by recording 2.0 quarterback sacks and four tackles. While that may not raise any eyebrows, the Rams starting defensive end, Jonah Williams, needed nearly six times that number of snaps, 598 to be exact, to get to the same number of quarterback sacks.

But what was most frustrating about the team's lack of pressure is how the Rams backup edge rushers seemed to struggle. Let's put the results on display in the form of a data table to illustrate what I mean:

While the Rams rotation did not rely heavily on backup players at the outside linebacker position, you may have expected someone to share similar results like Desjuan Johnson, and record multiple quarterback sacks. Unfortunately, that was not the case, forcing the Rams coaching staff to skew the rotations too heavily into the starters for last season in 2023. If that does not change this season, there is little hope for marked improvement, save the progress from Byron Young and Michael Hoecht this season.

Ah, but help is on the way. Here's what that looks like.