When you’re 1-4, changes often need to be made. The Los Angeles Rams started to shake things up on Sunday in their game against the Green Bay Packers, making adjustments to the secondary after giving up way too many yards through the air in the first four weeks.
Tre’Davious White was benched, Darious Williams and Ahkello Witherspoon were given starting roles and Quentin Lake was moved from the slot to a more traditional safety role, opening the door for Josh Wallace to cover the slot.
The results were encouraging but still not significant enough to make anyone feel comfortable with the state of the defense and further changes could be coming – on both sides of the ball.
Sean McVay was asked about whether the Rams will consider other adjustments following the Week 6 bye and he indicated that everything is on the table.
“We’ll evaluate everything,” he said. “That was the result of Josh Wallace playing some star today. That enabled Quentin Lake to be able to play safety almost exclusively with the exception of a couple things. We’ll observe everything. When you’re in these situations, we have to make sure we’re doing a good job of looking at the totality of everything, regardless of position, and make sure we’re doing a great job of trying to make sure we’re playing as good of football as we can with the remainder of the season.”
One area the Rams could look to make adjustments is at linebacker. Troy Reeder and Christian Rozeboom have been at the center (literally) of the Rams’ struggles against the run and they’ve been equally bad in coverage.
Whether it’s missed tackles, bad angles or biting on play action, Reeder and Rozeboom haven’t looked like NFL-level starters thus far. It might be time to give Jake Hummel and Omar Speights a look.
McVay and his staff will have plenty of time to look at areas of improvement thanks to the Week 6 bye, needing to get things back on track quickly after starting 1-4 to this point.
