This Rams veteran addition is doing everything right at camp (and people notice)

There was a huge learning curve undertaken by the Los Angeles Rams on the defensive side of the football in 2024. Let me explain. From the moment the team hired Chris Shula to take up the mantle of Defensive Coordinator, he was immediately held responsible for everything the defense would do from that moment on.

But from an impactful standpoint, nothing changed. Shula inherited a defense from former DC Raheem Morris, and the first order of business was trying to scheme how to transition from what the defense did to what Shula wanted the defense to do

And to do it all without now-retired All-Pro defensive lineman Aaron Donald.

Perhaps that properly set the stage. With no superstars, Shulla essentially had a clean slate to work with. And he leveraged that new chalkboard to write in the names of rookie and second-year players as starters.

They were all on a learning curve, too. Not just about a new defense, but about Shula's defensive scheme and philosophy. Like defensive test pilots, they rolled the defense through a 17-game season, slowly but surely becoming adept at what it could do. Until they discovered that the defense simply did not have the ability to stuff the run against a determined offense.

Back to the drawing board.

Poona Ford levels up Rams defense

It's impossible to think about the future of the Rams defense in 2025 and not ask a basic but all-important question:

How will this team stop the run?

And there it is. The one flaw that bit the Rams defense repeatedly in 2024. As if that wasn't enough, the Rams face the top five running backs from 2024, plus RBs Christian McCaffrey, James Conner, and Kenneth Walker III twice. So stopping the run is not a luxury. It's a matter of survival.

It's not a topic that we can saturate in one article. This is far too important to gloss over. But the Rams did take steps to improve their run defense, and the first step was signing former Los Angeles Chargers run-stuffing savant, nose tackle Poona Ford.

Ford is a small but powerful nose tackle with long reach to ensure that he gets and maintains the upper hand against offensive linemen. And now that the Rams training camp has begun, he is already impressing his teammates:

It won't fall on Ford to single-handedly defend the run. But this is a young group of defenders who are eager to learn new tricks and strategies to improve their craft. Embedding Poona Ford in the middle of the defense not only adds his resolute run defense to the defensive front but also adds a rising tide of run defense to all of his teammates as well.

Braden Fiske already recognizes what Poona Ford adds to the defense. You can bet that his teammates do too. Newly added nose tackle Poon Ford is doing everything right at camp (and people are noticing). Until the Rams shut down a star running back on a football field, that's as good as it gets for now.

As always, thanks for reading.

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