Defensive Philosophy

[GoodBadUgly]

Too early to form concrete opinion, but at this point I feel strongly that Staley needs to ramp up the "pressure" mix in his defense. It is unfortunate that we can't get pressure from anybody other than AD, and need to bring the heat. But I'd rather trust my 1-on-1 skills, giving up a few big plays, for the benefits of forcing errors.

A few reasons:

• We gave up Peters to go Ramsey. Traded good zone guy for 1-on-1. He will miss now and then, but I like the tradeoff
• Whether you give up a few big plays, or take the ball away, the D is on the field less. With our O running really well, why not give them more time to score points? I like the tradeoff
• It's more fun for me (selfish)
• What big plays are you limiting by playing soft shell anyway? Seems like opponents are getting big plays anyway, so why not bring it?

This doesn't apply to all cases, as some QBs are just too good against pressure. But Allen?? I think it was proven late the right choice was to force quick decisions. We would have had 5 INTs had we done this from the start...

 

[LARAMSinFeb.]

There's obviously a lot not working. Seems like whatever Staley tried to refine between Phil. and Buff. made things even worse. We need to make some personnel changes too. Ebukam--great guy and plays hard but isn't getting it done. Floyd looks slow out there to me. I love Brockers but he hasn't done much in a while now, SJD either.

Looks like Fox got an 81 rating though--maybe he should start.

 

[GoodBadUgly]

There's obviously a lot not working. Seems like whatever Staley tried to refine between Phil. and Buff. made things even worse. We need to make some personnel changes too. Ebukam--great guy and plays hard but isn't getting it done. Floyd looks slow out there to me. I love Brockers but he hasn't done much in a while now, SJD either.

Brockers is particularly disturbing. I watched him on 2 plays (where the commentator focus was on Allen), and he got blocked and just fell down and didn't get up. I was thinking, "How does he get through a film session with this kind of effort???"

Bottom line for me, I'd rather see us have a little more Gregg Williams, a little less Wade Phillips.

 

[fearsomefour]

Jury is still out.
The next two weeks are games the Rams D should do well and keep both teams below 20 points.
Teams are still running on us, Buffalo averaged 4.8 per carry.

 

[LARAMSinFeb.]

Jury is still out.
The next two weeks are games the Rams D should do well and keep both teams below 20 points.
Teams are still running on us, Buffalo averaged 4.8 per carry.

It used to be we couldn't stop the run/poor tackling. Now we've added not being able to cover or rush passers (except for AD). It's bad.

 

[nighttrain]

Would like to see this Defense with Lewis and Robinson healthy
train

 

[“Turbo set!”]

I don’t understand the criticism on this forum for Floyd.

We can’t have an All-Pro at every position.

 

[OldSchool]

Fans blame Staley. Players blame their execution.


View: https://twitter.com/JourdanRodrigue/status/1310342936677105664

 

[ottoman89]

Brockers is particularly disturbing. I watched him on 2 plays (where the commentator focus was on Allen), and he got blocked and just fell down and didn't get up. I was thinking, "How does he get through a film session with this kind of effort???"

Bottom line for me, I'd rather see us have a little more Gregg Williams, a little less Wade Phillips.

As far as Brockers, that's why after the last season or 2 I was particularly ready to move on from him. He's a great locker room guy and best buddies with AD but he's inconsistent all over the board with pass rush and holding the LOS. He has occasional flash plays but that's it.

I saw someone once say "He gives one hell of a pregame speech and then disappears for a few hours".

 

[Jacobarch]

The problem with our defense is we have mental breakdowns. That comes down to discipline. Take a look at the offense. Slow start but put up 32 points on a very good Defense. That says a lot about the Offenses mental capacity to focus and detail. I don't see that with our Defensive unit as a whole. Guys play undisciplined and they have for sometime now. 3rd and 22 and you let Cole Beasley convert? What? Really? Our defense literally made Allen and Beasley look like Tom Brady and Wes Welker in their primes yesterday. It was disturbing! Another thing I've noticed is first half adjustments vs. second half for the defense. WTF is wrong with our Defense in the first two quarters? Look at every game we've played this year so far, better yet look at last years games 1st half vs. 2nd half. It's disturbing. Either McVay doesn't know how to gameplan for defense in the first half or we are just that predictable.

McVay needs to dive deep with his D-Coord and get his unit up to speed, too many missed tackles, too many mental errors, and too many players not getting the job done. We have too many high priced pieces and draft picks for them to be playing so poorly at times. I'm not saying we need to be the 85 Bears or the 2000 Ravens but common.

 

[Jacobarch]

As far as Brockers, that's why after the last season or 2 I was particularly ready to move on from him. He's a great locker room guy and best buddies with AD but he's inconsistent all over the board with pass rush and holding the LOS. He has occasional flash plays but that's it.

I saw someone once say "He gives one hell of a pregame speech and then disappears for a few hours".

Yeah, we should have kicked the tires on another DT and let him walk. He's not playing any better than a low priced FA for the last couple seasons now.

 

[FrantikRam]

I know this is the boring response, but it was just one game..

It happens sometimes. And in this case, we happened to be playing one of the best offenses in the NFL. We saw that our pass defense was top notch the first two weeks - why are we going to take all that way because of one bad game?

 

[Psycho_X]

I don’t understand the criticism on this forum for Floyd.

We can’t have an All-Pro at every position.

I don't mind Floyd, he isn't a pro bowl, elite talent but he is a solid player for us. $10 million for a solid vet isn't the worst investment even though people seem to struggle with it. He's the ONLY multi pass rush we've had outside of Donald. He'll probably end the season with 6-9 sacks which is decent. If we can find ANYONE to provide occasional pass rush from the opposite side this defense would benefit greatly.

 

[Seth Griffith]

I too am skeptical and made a post last week about our run D. Still looking for improvement in defending the run. Yesterday, specifically, the offensive performance in the first half didn’t help the D.
In the second half it was a different story. That being said, too many miscommunications/big plays (Beasley converting 3rd and forever at the worst time).
lastly, pretty disappointed in Jaken’s game yesterday. He’s too good to have brain farts like that.

 

[ottoman89]

Yeah, we should have kicked the tires on another DT and let him walk. He's not playing any better than a low priced FA for the last couple seasons now.

Agree completely. Hell, even a veteran like McCoy (who is now hurt) who can still rush the passer.

 

[AZRams]

Fans blame Staley. Players blame their execution.


View: https://twitter.com/JourdanRodrigue/status/1310342936677105664

Yep. One of the first half TDs was exactly that. Ramsey got caught watching Allen instead of sticking to his assignment and his guy floated open in the back of the EZ for the touch.

 

[fearsomefour]

It used to be we couldn't stop the run/poor tackling. Now we've added not being able to cover or rush passers (except for AD). It's bad.

Maybe.
May be one of those years where bad offenses are held under 20 points and good offenses do their thing.
Bills O has been dominating and largely did their thing.
For me jury is still out.

 

[kurtfaulk]

Teams are still running on us, Buffalo averaged 4.8 per carry.

c'mon man, did you see some of the moves singletary was making out there? sometimes you just gotta give credit to the rb.

.

 

[fearsomefour]

c'mon man, did you see some of the moves singletary was making out there? sometimes you just gotta give credit to the rb.

.

He is good.
I noticed a couple of runs where he did it on his own, but, saw plenty of holes as well.
There are going to be good running backs on every team the Rams play.
At some point they have to tighten it up.

 

[OldSchool]

c'mon man, did you see some of the moves singletary was making out there? sometimes you just gotta give credit to the rb.

.

Plus until late in the game they were barely above 4.1. Our defense did pretty good yesterday and lets not forget Singletary might be the worst back we've faced so far and only Philly had a bad OLine.