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By: Steve Rebeiro | 7 hours ago
The Rams flew home from Hawaii on Sunday with more than a preseason loss. After the team’s preseason defeat at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys, the Rams announced that linebacker Micah Kiser will undergo surgery to repair a pectoral injury and is out indefinitely.
Losing a projected starter is obviously a blow to any team. That doesn’t mean it’s always the end of the world. There are two main factors as to why Kiser’s injury won’t affect the defense as much as losing a starter usually would.
Firstly, many of us anticipated Kiser’s role would be one of the least significant among the Rams defensive starters. The biggest evidence towards this is how the Rams used their linebackers during the absence of Mark Barron early on last season.
While the team had faith in Barron to stay on the field on passing downs, they had no faith in Ramik Wilson, who started at linebacker in place of Barron for the team’s first four games. Wilson and safety Marqui Christian had a near 50-50 split at the position. Wilson handled the early down work, and Christian handled the expected passing downs.
The combination of cutting Barron and drafting Taylor Rapp led to speculation that the Rams would use Rapp and Kiser similarly to how they used Wilson and Christian early last season. Rapp has been a bright spot for the Rams this preseason and it seems more and more likely that he’ll have a role on defense this year. He won’t be cutting into John Johnson and Eric Weddle’s snaps much. No matter who fills in for Kiser, he’s probably going to be splitting snaps with Rapp.
The second major factor is Kiser himself. It’s not like he has given us a ton of reasons to believe he’s going to be the next great NFL linebacker. He failed to beat out Wilson for the starting job last year, and he’s had to compete with Bryce Hager for the starting job this preseason. He certainly seems like the best of the team’s linebackers not named Corey Littleton. That still isn’t saying much.
And, honestly, the current linebackers on the roster might not be that much worse than Kiser. Hager is a flawed player, but he’s played with enough intensity on special teams to become one of the team’s longest-tenured players. He’s looked good enough at camp to earn a real shot at being the team’s starting linebacker. As the expected starter, he’ll likely be asked to simply be a reliable tackler on running downs. Hager will be as motivated as anyone to make an impact.
If Hager doesn’t work out, the Rams do have some other linebackers emerging this preseason, most notably being seventh-round pick Dakota Allen. Allen’s unusual path to the NFL has been well-documented. But the talk around Allen lately hasn’t been about his stint on the Netflix series “Last Chance U,” it’s been about his impressive performance in the team’s loss to the Cowboys.
It would be unlikely for Allen to emerge as the team’s starting linebacker. It was also unlikely that he would find his way back to Texas Tech after being dismissed from the program and eventually find his way to the NFL, but here we are. He’s been receiving tons of praise from Sean McVay and he certainly has the support of the fans. All eyes will be on Allen as the Rams finish out this preseason.
Losing Kiser hurts. The Rams lost a valuable player at a thin position. But this injury isn’t likely to have much of an impact on the team’s Super Bowl odds. Kiser earned the starting job because of the team’s “next man up” mentality. Shouldn’t we give the next man up a fair shot as well?
Micah Kiser's absence won't make or break Rams defense
The Rams flew home from Hawaii on Sunday with more than a preseason loss. After the team’s preseason defeat at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys, the Rams announced that linebacker Micah Kiser …
theramswire.usatoday.com
