Rams' defense needs higher gear --PD

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RamBill

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Rams' defense needs higher gear
• By Jim Thomas

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_ed64cac4-58da-5076-838f-fb13d72076f7.html

A week ago in preparing for Philadelphia’s offense, San Francisco defensive coordinator Vic Fangio had the 49ers’ scout team rotate wide receivers and running backs after every play. As soon as the previous play was completed, the next set of backs and receivers were lining up, according to the Oakland Tribune.

In addition, Fangio purposely sent calls in late to his defense on the practice field, to simulate the kind of confusion that Philly’s up-tempo, no-huddle offense can cause.

This week at Rams Park, the Rams’ scout team offense ran a play about every 20 seconds, which is quick, leaving the starting defense with little time to catch its breath and get lined up properly.

Such is life when trying to defend the Eagles. It’s not just the plays they run, it’s how quickly they run them.

Second-year Eagles coach Chip Kelly brought a version of his fast-break offense from Oregon, and it worked like a charm in 2013 when Philly set franchise single-season records for points, total yards, touchdowns and passing yards.

The quick pace gets defenses on their heels, tires them out and can lead to busted plays and missed assignments.

“You prepare for the tempo,” linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “It stresses your communication. You have to be good with hand signals. You have to change hand signals midgame because you don’t want them to get a bead on what you’re doing. But at the end of the day, you have to have great eyes vs. this group.”

Great eyes?

“You have to discipline your eyes and keep ’em in the right place,” Rams coach Jeff Fisher said. “You can’t get distracted by a lot of the subtle things that they do offensively. That’s what they’re trying to do is to get you to go someplace else with your eyes.

“When you do that, you’re not seeing what you’re supposed to see. Namely, the wide receiver running by you, or the running back cutting back against the grain. That’s how the Eagles can create creases at the line of scrimmage, or seams in the coverage.”

For a still-young Rams defense that has experienced occasional trouble staying assignment-sound against more conventional offenses, Philadelphia’s approach is cause for concern. More so than any other week, sound preparation has been key for the Rams.

On film, Laurinaitis said the Eagles run a lot of the same plays, or similar plays. And if they’re successful with something, they’ll run it over and over until you stop it. Kind of an old-school style but with a modern approach. What can cause confusion, particularly in the high-tempo environment, is that the Eagles may run that same play but with different personnel, alignments or motion.

If you get caught looking at that window dressing and think something different is coming, that’s when you get gashed with a big play.

“Those are things that have hurt us, quite frankly, in the first three games,” Laurinaitis said. “There’s been great defense and then there’s six plays, seven plays where we have bad eyes — and boom, it’s a big play.”

That puts focus, discipline and communication at a premium Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.

“The last thing we can have is bad communication, and just give them free plays,” Laurinaitis said. “They’re gonna make plays on their own, but you give them free plays, you’re already behind the eight-ball.”

The communication process from play to play goes from sideline to middle linebacker. Once Laurinaitis gets the play, he must repeat it to everyone else on defense and make sure they get lined up properly. Obviously, when facing a quick-tempo offense such as Philadelphia, all of that must be done quickly and without benefit of a huddle.

“My lungs will be tested,” Lauriniaitis said. “It’s a different beast when you’re able to huddle up, talk to your guys.”

That’s where the hand signals come into play, as well as code words.

While at Southern Cal in college, Rams safety T.J. McDonald played against this style when Kelly was coaching Oregon in the Pacific-12 Conference.

“It’s fast,” McDonald said. “They’ve got different levels of speed. In college, they would go fast, and there would be some plays they’d go even faster. It’s definitely high-tempo, so the quicker you can get (them) off the field, the better.”

Getting lined up right is tough, McDonald said, only “if you make it tough.” It can be a simple as listening to the play call and following the plan.

One other by-product of the Eagles’ up-tempo style is that it makes substitutions difficult. NFL rules give the defense time to sub if the offense sends in different personnel, but you’ve still got to be able to do so quickly. And if the defense wants to send in different personnel on its own — without the offense doing so — that’s all but impossible against this style of offense.

Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams said he has 19 separate personnel packages based on what the opposition is doing, maximizing his players’ individual strengths, and taking into account injury situations.

But that will have to be limited to some degree Sunday against the Eagles.

“When you have package limitations as far as subbing on and off the field, really what you end up doing is you simplify your game (plan) and we have,” Williams said.
 

fearsomefour

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It will be interesting to see what coverage scheme the Rams run....playing off or not.
A 3/3/5 will a S playing like a LB....what would Fritz Shurmer do?