One of the easiest ways to evaluate a team's pass defense is to look at the QB performance against. In that regard we were 19th last season, due to low pressure rates up front and poor coverage on the back end:
So the key question here in my mind is to what extent do these draft picks compensate for what we lost up front.
Subtracting Floyd hurts our rush but the biggest loss is probably in the run game. Other than that we should have more actual rush talent on the depth chart. So it follows that the key for this group is one player giving us actual starter level production. Best option for that is Young but there is room for that to happen and us to be better off on the edge due to better depth. Bigger rotation of edge options should equal more pressures over a full season's snaps. Thus my guess is we'll suffer a slight dip in pressures to somewhere around the same, but I also expect a bigger decrease in contain vs the run.
The interesting change though from last season to this season is at DL. Rams lost two 1T types who were good vs the run and did not replace them. The DL they brought in are guys with some shakes to them on the interior, with more 3T skills than 1T. Snead mentioned they wanted to pair AD with another interior rush threat in their pass down fronts, and you can see that I think in the picks. So the Rams either expect the offense to be explosive and putting opponents down early, so they can pin their ears back, or they simply prioritized the pass defense and welp you can't fix everything in one offseason. Guessing it was the latter.
Obvious concern for an oldschool mentality type like me is that we might get gashed hard on the ground. But maybe that doesn't matter. We're gonna find out quickly too because we face what I think will be two of the best run games in the NFL in the first two games, both being divisional matchups as well.
Dammit accidentally clicked the post before I was done hammering you guys with text.
The other element is of course the back end. But I actually like what they've done with the corners. I think we're stronger in our top two corners right now than we were last season. Would have been nice to add another one in the draft but we had a ton of needs. If Durant emerges the way I think he will we might be better on that back end than we were last season. That secondary was a circus last year, and it was iffy as F even in the title season the year before, at least up until Von came online. Our rush masked a ton of issues on that back end that got exposed last season.
So a big key I think is going to be the safeties. They were pretty poor last season, very inconsistent and part of that was we had meathead SS types playing way too many snaps. This season we should get Fuller back, and whatever you might think of him he's better than what we had last season. Which means we need one safety to step up in that pairing. Not sure if that's gonna happen, I mean anything's possible but if you look at the secondary overall I expect they'll be better this year than they have been in spite of losing Ramsey.
And the combination of being stronger 2 deep at corner plus getting Fuller back means we might see a slight uptick in our pass defense to the tune of maybe being more middle of the pack than down there by that bottom third in QB rating against. Key is going to be whether the run game is too big a weakness. If it is then it will undermine the pass defense.
