There are two ways to look at the Los Angeles Rams’ defense as currently constructed.
The first is that it’s a land of opportunity for young players and overlooked veterans to leave their mark on a tough NFC West. Starting spots are up for grabs. There is a chance to leave your mark and prove you belong at the highest level of the football world.
The second is, oh no, things are very, very bad.
The Rams defense has Aaron Donald and … well, that’s pretty much it for name brand players. 10 players started at least 10 games for that unit in 2022. Two are set to return for 2023: Donald and linebacker Ernest Jones.
Jalen Ramsey? Traded.
Bobby Wagner, Leonard Floyd and Troy Hill? Released.
Greg Gaines and Nick Scott? They’ve signed elsewhere as free agents.
The pendulum for general manager Les Snead’s buy-now, pay-later strategy has swung firmly back in the opposite direction. The concept of shipping off draft picks for veteran stars led the franchise to its first Super Bowl win in two decades in 2022. But it also depleted the team’s stock of young, inexpensive high-ceiling players.
This had the compounding effect of soaking up the team’s salary cap space. Offloading Ramsey and cutting Wagner, Floyd and Hill got Snead under this year’s $224.8 million spending limit — Los Angeles currently has roughly $5 million in effective cap space, per Over the Cap. But shedding that salary meant the team had to sit out free agency this year.
The Rams are the only team in the league that hasn’t added a free agent who played on another team in 2022. Their only new addition so far is Hunter Long, a third-year tight end with three career targets who came over in the cost-cutting Ramsey trade.
Normally LA would be able to count on young prospects to fill that void but, welp, the team’s first round pick — sixth overall — belongs to the Detroit Lions thanks to the Matthew Stafford trade that delivered that Super Bowl 56 win. The Rams do have an extra third rounder thanks to the Ramsey deal, but also don’t have their own fourth- or fifth-round selections due to trades for Sony Michel and Hill, neither of whom is on the current roster.
There are eight defensive backs currently under contract. All are in their fourth year as a pro or younger and none were drafted before the fourth round. That group has 42 starts between them; safety Jordan Fuller is responsible for 29 of them.
The four-man linebacker corps currently features Jones (solid enough as a sometime starter), Kier Thomas, Daniel Hardy, Christian Rozeboom, Jake Hummel and Zack VanValkenburg. Jones played 61 percent of the team’s defensive snaps last season. Thomas was second among his position group … at 6.5 percent.
Up front, Donald will be flanked by former undrafted free agent Jonah Williams, former undrafted free agent Marquise Copeland, and former 2021 Day 3 picks Earnest Brown IV and Bobby Brown, neither of whom played more than 16 percent of the team’s snaps last fall. It’s a good thing Donald can create magic against double teams, because that might be all he sees in 2023.
Of course there’s time for things to change. Los Angeles has a little spending room to bring in bargain bin veterans. There’s enough draft capital to find a handful of starters even if recent returns on Snead’s Day 2 selections are mixed.
But if these Rams are going to top 2022’s 5-12 record, they’re going to need Cooper Kupp and Matthew Stafford healthy and ready to deal. This is a team that’s going to be staring at 30-plus points on the opponents’ side of the scoreboard entirely too often.
There’s a silver lining should Stafford and Kupp fail to match opponents’ fireworks next fall. Barring another trade, 2024 will mark the first year the Rams have a Day 1 selection since drafting Jared Goff in 2016. This is a team in dire need of young talent. Los Angeles, should it fail upward to the top overall pick, could either make a tough decision about a young franchise quarterback like Caleb Williams or auction that pick off for a Bears-like haul of picks and players.
That’s at least a year away. For now, the Rams will be left trying to turn chicken crap into chicken salad as it works off the debt of an expensive Super Bowl run.
