Rams fans can thank Les Snead for crafting one of NFL's best cornerback rooms

Imagine the nights of lost sleep for Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead. After a humbling 2025 season of inching oh-so-close to competing in Super Bowl LX, he had to reconstruct a team capable of defending the pass. Doing so while keeping everybody under contract within the annual salary cap was quite the undertaking.

But somehow, he did it.

The plan made sense. After trading for All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie, Snead had the obvious layup by signing his former Chiefs teammate, Jaylen Watson, in free agency. The duo has been tremendously effective. In fact, they both appear among PFF's Top-5 cornerbacks in coverage grade.

Even with the Rams' pass rush struggling to gain traction, the overall pass defense has been superb. LA has remained among the league's top-tier units. The feat is even more impressive given that McDuffie has missed two games and Watson has missed one game due to injury.

But what of LA's other guy?

Unheralded Josh Wallace is the true surprise in Rams secondary

Undrafted cornerback Josh Wallace is coming into his own. Entering his third season, he has appeared in all seven games and has started five. That tops the number of starts in his first two seasons combined, and he has earned the larger role with a significant uptick in his production.

Wallace has 25 tackles, an interception, five passes defensed, and has only allowed 13 of 26 targets to find their mark. Better still, he hasn't allowed a touchdown and has only missed 3.8 percent of his tackles. Even the team's official social media account is touting his accomplishments. By overall grade, Wallace is PFF's seventh-ranked cornerback so far in 2026.

His emergence is vital to the Rams' future. The team chose to invest in veteran cornerbacks and failed to fill the pipeline with talented youngsters. Wallace checks that box.

It's easy to get it wrong. Every personnel move is subject to a wide range of variables that can upset the apple cart. So it's only right to admire what Snead has accomplished. Even after the additions of McDuffie and Watson, many still viewed the cornerback rotation as a man short. Credit Snead for being able to project Wallace as a integral contributor in an elite secondary.

The hope is that the pass rush will improve dramatically with the return of edge rusher Myles Garrett. But until that happens, LA will lean on the secondary to defend the pass at a high level. So far, that's exactly what this group has been doing.

As always, thanks for reading.

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