The Los Angeles Rams came into the season with a much smaller defensive line than they’ve had in recent years. Following the departures of A’Shawn Robinson and Greg Gaines, the unit up front lost not only two key players, but two of their largest players, too.
At 324 pounds, Bobby Brown III was the only defensive lineman over 300 pounds to start the season and in Sunday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, their starting nose tackle went down with a knee injury. Brown is expected to miss 5-7 weeks with an MCL sprain, leaving the Rams without their space-eating defensive lineman.
Buy Rams TicketsNose tackles don’t often rack up big numbers on the stat sheet and you might not think Brown was having a very productive season considering he only has 13 tackles and no sacks. However, his loss is a big one for the Rams, both literally and figuratively.
According to Pro Football Focus, Brown is the Rams’ fourth-highest-graded player on defense this season with a grade of 68.9. His run-defense grade of 66.6 is eighth-best on the team and his three total pressures are tied for the seventh-most.
The biggest concern with Brown out is a lack of size on the interior when it comes to defending the run. The Rams have Kobie Turner, who’s also gotten snaps at nose tackle, but only 46 compared to Brown’s 109. He’s also 36 pounds lighter than Brown and 2 inches shorter, so he doesn’t bring quite the same bulk to the interior of the line. Aaron Donald is the only other player to get snaps as a true nose tackle on defense this season.
If the Rams don’t plan to sign a true nose tackle to replace Brown, what they may have to do is make Turner a full-time nose tackle and give a player like Larrell Murchison more snaps at defensive tackle in place of Turner. That’s certainly not ideal, which emphasizes how big a loss Brown is for this group.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a season-ending injury like the Rams feared, but even being without Brown for 5-7 weeks will be a tough blow, especially with teams such as the Cowboys, Packers and Seahawks coming up on the schedule – teams that have talented running backs.
