Nick Scott has emerged as a valuable defensive player for the Los Angeles Rams this season and he’s garnered the attention of his teammates. When asked about the growth that Scott has shown to begin this season, Jalen Ramsey had nothing but good things to say about the fourth-year safety.
“I think a lot of it comes just from his mindset. He has an amazing mindset, a very similar mindset that I have out there when you want to make as many plays as you can make for the team. You want to be great, you want to be a tone setter right? A game changer, that’s the mindset he has,” Ramsey said. “When I first got here, I joke with him about this sometimes even now, he didn’t have that mindset much or he had that mindset only for special teams. He never looked at himself as like, ‘Man, I’m like an actual really good safety. I could do really good safety for this team.’ As soon as he started to actually be like, ‘No, I’m more than just a special teams player. I can do whatever I put my mind to and just work for it,’ it all started to come to life for him, honestly. Once he got those opportunities, he was ready for it. He sees those moments and now we see him doing what he’s doing now, making a lot of plays and being a leader in our secondary.”
Whenever the Rams took Scott in the seventh round of the 2019 NFL draft out of Penn State, the plan was for him to be a standout contributor on special teams. The former Nittany Lion would spend the majority of his first three seasons on special teams before getting an opportunity to step up on defense in 2021.
Amid injuries to multiple safeties in the playoffs last season, Scott would start in all four postseason games, including the Super Bowl. The former seventh-round pick would total 14 combined tackles, three pass breakups, and one interception in his four starts in the playoffs.
Scott has picked up from where he left off last season to begin the 2022 campaign with 17 combined tackles, one pass breakup, and a forced fumble while starting in all three games for the Rams. In the final year of his rookie contract, Scott is certainly proving that he can be a productive safety in the NFL.
