Moves that led to building a very good defense (positivity time)

[FRO]

I can't find one draft miss by these guys. Not a single one. Free agency is a different story, but free agency is something you should stay away from unless you can get guys on short term deals.

- Hiring Mike Waufle
He has been an outstanding defensive line coach. He took Robert Quinn and developed him into a very good RE. He has developed Brockers and Donald into a great DE duo. Hayes and Simms have been good contributors under his watch too. Then you have UDFAs in Westbrooks and Lonacre showing signs of promise.

- The 2012 draft
Michael Brockers, Janoris Jenkins, and Trumaine Johnson are very good football players. In the case of Jenkins he is a pro bowl CB and has ascended to the upper tier. This draft really helped our defense. Add onto that signing Rodney McLeod as a UDFA has bode well for them.

- 2013 Draft
Alec Ogletree and TJ McDonald are both studs. Both have pro bowls in their future.

- Aaron Donald
A generational talent at DT. Talent and college production wise he should have went first overall. An absolute game changer at the position.

- Hiring Gregg Williams
A terrific DC. Yeah he can get over aggressive at times. I like it though. When the unit is fully healthy he has them playing great.

- Trading for Mark Barron
What were the Bucs thinking. How do you not find a role for a player like this. Lovie is a good coach, he isn't good with personnel moves. We saw that first hand (saying Jamie Duncan can run his defense better than London Fletcher).

- Moving Brandon Fisher to DB coach
Maybe it's just having more experience, but our DBs seem to be playing much better than they were before. This is Fisher's first year as DB coach, so I'm giving him some credit.

 

[Alan]

On the flip side, it's hard to find a pick I didn't/don't have problems with on the offensive side of the ball.

 

[TexasRam]

One could argue that if the oline didn't sustain the injuries it did that the Rams would be leading the wildcard spot and breathing down the cards neck.

The defense is solid and was better before the injuries to tree and tru

 

[junkman]

Chris Long and James Laurinaitis just face palmed. alm: I'm trying to decide if their omission was intentional or not.

• Long has not been impactful in these last two injury riddled seasons.
• Laurinaitis has been either Mr Reliable / defensive QB... OR... a slow guy who is a liability in coverage and makes all his tackles downfield... depending on who you ask

Both make a lot of money. Long makes a LOT of money.

 

[FRO]

Chris Long and James Laurinaitis just face palmed. alm: I'm trying to decide if their omission was intentional or not.

• Long has not been impactful in these last two injury riddled seasons.
• Laurinaitis has been either Mr Reliable / defensive QB... OR... a slow guy who is a liability in coverage and makes all his tackles downfield... depending on who you ask

Both make a lot of money. Long makes a LOT of money.

Sorry I should have specified moves that Fisher and Snead made. My bad. Love both Long and Laurinaitis. Feel horrible for the both of them for working their butts of every week and keeping their mouths shut while their teams just sucked around them. We may have wasted their entire careers just like we did with Jackson.

 

[RAMSinLA]

The Defense is good when healthy but Losing Quinn was a real game changer for the Rams D. They still have some problems mainly depth. What they are doing is relying heavy on run stopping and giving room to receivers and covering them deep hopefully on 3rd and long (bend but don't break) in hopes that the line can pressure the QB into making a bad throw. It's an old school risky Defensive scheme as we all witnessed yesterday.

 

[DCH]

I hated the Ogletree pick, but man was he a good choice. Same with Brockers, who is kinda the nose tackle core of the D-line. Building depth on the D-line should be near the top of what we've accomplished - being able to sub in Hayes, Sims, Longacre, Westbrooks and all the decent-to-good D-line depth we've had over the past several years has really paid dividends.

 

[junkman]

One could argue that if the oline didn't sustain the injuries it did that the Rams would be leading the wildcard spot and breathing down the cards neck.

True. A lot of what the Rams were looking for in their OL rookies was durability. Just didn't work out that way.

• They were much better with Havenstein, until he got injured.
• Saffold was just disappointing all year (all 4.5 games of it) and they seemed to get better when Saffold went out and Reynolds replaced him (tho that also coincides with Gurley starting).
• Jamon Brown... jury is still out. Seems like he should be good, but had a lot of bad games.
• Barnes, mediocre as expected, so at least I'm not disappointed.
• GRob... just disappointing.

THEN, when the starting rookies and the injury prone vet got injured, they had more rookies to back them up. Rookie free agent Darrel Williams and rookie Donnal get injured so we replace with rookie Wichman and effective rookie Rainey. 6 rookie OL on the opening day roster. Only Saffold with a full season of NFL playing experience. That's just dumb, like playing Russian roulette with 4 bullets in 5 chambers. If you want to start a rookie because you see big upside (GRob), great! But have a grizzled vet on the bench to back him up (Reynolds).

And it's not like they haven't had a ton of draft picks the last few years - wasted a lot of picks on luxury players like Pead and Mason (Mason could have been Gabe Jackson or Trai Turner), Mo Alexander could have been a QB. Spent a lot on Austin. Whiffed on Barrett Jones. And it's not like they haven't had chances to spend free agent money but whiffed on Long and Wells. Threw disproportionate money at the DL (Fairley) instead of spending any on OL.

The Rams FO only have themselves to blame for this OL debacle, can't just chalk it up to injuries.

 

[FRO]

True. A lot of what the Rams were looking for in their OL rookies was durability. Just didn't work out that way.

• They were much better with Havenstein, until he got injured.
• Saffold was just disappointing all year (all 4.5 games of it) and they seemed to get better when Saffold went out and Reynolds replaced him (tho that also coincides with Gurley starting).
• Jamon Brown... jury is still out. Seems like he should be good, but had a lot of bad games.
• Barnes, mediocre as expected, so at least I'm not disappointed.
• GRob... just disappointing.

THEN, when the starting rookies and the injury prone vet got injured, they had more rookies to back them up. Rookie free agent Darrel Williams and rookie Donnal get injured so we replace with rookie Wichman and effective rookie Rainey. 6 rookie OL on the opening day roster. Only Saffold with a full season of NFL playing experience. That's just dumb, like playing Russian roulette with 4 bullets in 5 chambers. If you want to start a rookie because you see big upside (GRob), great! But have a grizzled vet on the bench to back him up (Reynolds).

And it's not like they haven't had a ton of draft picks the last few years - wasted a lot of picks on luxury players like Pead and Mason (Mason could have been Gabe Jackson or Trai Turner), Mo Alexander could have been a QB. Spent a lot on Austin. Whiffed on Barrett Jones. And it's not like they haven't had chances to spend free agent money but whiffed on Long and Wells. Threw disproportionate money at the DL (Fairley) instead of spending any on OL.

The Rams FO only have themselves to blame for this OL debacle, can't just chalk it up to injuries.

The silver lining with the injuries is that our young backups will have in game experience and will be much better for it. Maybe one will emerge as a solution going forward.

I think had the offensive line had stayed healthy we wouldn't be a playoff team. We would be closer to 7-9 or 8-8, but in the grand scheme of things mediocrity would have been the worst thing for us because it would have killed our draft spot.

 

[RamFan503]

Great thread. Thanks.

 

[FRO]

Maybe the Rams can make a deal with the Saints where we contract a team and we combine our defense with their offense.

 

[…..]

Finding EJ Gaines in the draft

Yes, great thread idea

 

[FRO]

Finding EJ Gaines in the draft

Yes, great thread idea

I knew I missed something. I was half asleep when we picked Gaines and I was absolutely shocked that he hadn't been picked yet. I had him as a second or third rounder. He was a great find. Hope he isn't permanently damaged.

 

[…..]

On the flip side, it's hard to find a pick I didn't/don't have problems with on the offensive side of the ball.

Congrats, you almost derailed the thread in the very first response.

But I'm flipping your flip, and gonna ask you what you think was key in our resurgence in the defensive backfield?

 

[FRO]

Congrats, you almost derailed the thread in the very first response.

But I'm flipping your flip, and gonna ask you what you think was key in our resurgence in the defensive backfield?

I would say experience, but I'm not so sure switching from Cecil to Fisher is a coincidence. Just imagine if we had Gaines to go with Jenkins and Johnson.

 

[…..]

I would say experience, but I'm not so sure switching from Cecil to Fisher is a coincidence. Just imagine if we had Gaines to go with Jenkins and Johnson.

Exactly. Also in the secondary, McCloud has surprised me personally. I never expected much out of him, but he's won a lot of fans with his play.

 

[RamFan503]

On the flip side, it's hard to find a pick I didn't/don't have problems with on the offensive side of the ball.

Guess you must have missed the "(positivity time)" in the thread title. :fighting: Just sayin'

I get what you're saying but I do happen to see some pretty bright positives on the offensive side of the ball. Clearly not enough but I'm still hopin'

 

[Rainram]

I really want to retain our players on this side of the ball. And Wauffle is a GREAT defensive coach (not just a line coach).

It might be hard to re-sign some disgruntled defensive players (looking at you JJ), But I want them locked up in this order...
Jenkins
Brockers
McDonald
Ogletree
Johnson
Barron

I know Brockers and Ogletree (and Tavon Austin) are locked up through 2016...but I'd like to get maybe get ahead of the curve and extend them.

 

[FRO]

I really want to retain our players on this side of the ball. And Wauffle is a GREAT defensive coach (not just a line coach).

It might be hard to re-sign some disgruntled defensive players (looking at you JJ), But I want them locked up in this order...
Jenkins
Brockers
McDonald
Ogletree
Johnson
Barron

I know Brockers and Ogletree (and Tavon Austin) are locked up through 2016...but I'd like to get maybe get ahead of the curve and extend them.

We have the franchise tag and should use it in Jenkins if need be. You cannot move forward by allowing talented players to leave with zero compensation.

 

[thirteen28]

And the topic of this thread is why I totally disagree with the "blow it up/clean house" mentality so pervasive on the board today. Virtually all of our major problems are on one side of the ball. Our biggest problem on D right now is injuries. We are pretty well stocked at all three levels and have good defensive coaches from the DC on down. They can bring in a player like Barron and figure out how to use him where the team that drafted him didn't. There is not a single coach on the D side I would replace. Our draft picks on that side of the ball have worked out very well. Why the hell would anyone want to blow up the whole thing and lose that?

Does Fisher need to be replaced? Maybe, and absent a complete change to his approach to offense, yes. But our defense is solid in terms of both coaches and players, and if we do replace Fisher I really hope there is some way we can keep the defensive staff intact.