Sebastian Joseph Day breaks out in 2020

[MachS]

SJD looking ripped, and I've seen posts of him and AD working out so if he builds on last year he might be a pleasant surprise again for us. AD, ARob, Brock, SJD, Gains is a VERY stout interior rotation. We should be much better against the run from a D line standpoint than we have been in a while. Unfortunately you need good ILBs when you play a 3-4 if you want to fully shut down the run, and we dont have good ILBs. Hopefully one of them ends up being a good player, but I suspect we will be in Nickel again more than our base 3-4. Which means Rapp will be dropping down and helping out a lot. That is the front that gets our best players on the field, but it will be tough for us to be great against the run with our ILB core IMO.

 

[fearsomefour]

SJD looking ripped, and I've seen posts of him and AD working out so if he builds on last year he might be a pleasant surprise again for us. AD, ARob, Brock, SJD, Gains is a VERY stout interior rotation. We should be much better against the run from a D line standpoint than we have been in a while. Unfortunately you need good ILBs when you play a 3-4 if you want to fully shut down the run, and we dont have good ILBs. Hopefully one of them ends up being a good player, but I suspect we will be in Nickel again more than our base 3-4. Which means Rapp will be dropping down and helping out a lot. That is the front that gets our best players on the field, but it will be tough for us to be great against the run with our ILB core IMO.

This whole thread has me very excited for both Joseph-Day and Gaines.
Watched a replay of the week 5 game from last year at Seattle on NFL Network today.
Both guys made some nice plays.
I’m pumped up about our DL rotation now.
Thank you ROD thread....

 

[MachS]

This whole thread has me very excited for both Joseph-Day and Gaines.
Watched a replay of the week 5 game from last year at Seattle on NFL Network today.
Both guys made some nice plays.
I’m pumped up about our DL rotation now.
Thank you ROD thread....

Yea I mean when Suh turned it on for the playoffs in 2018 we pretty much shut down the run fully until the SB. But now we have better depth than that year. Will be interesting to see how it plays out. We're also better at edge than that season. This defense is going to surprise a lot of people I think.

And if the oline plays well, then Goff and the running game gets back on track and we'll be able to beat anyone again.

 

[Rams43]

SJD looking ripped, and I've seen posts of him and AD working out so if he builds on last year he might be a pleasant surprise again for us. AD, ARob, Brock, SJD, Gains is a VERY stout interior rotation. We should be much better against the run from a D line standpoint than we have been in a while. Unfortunately you need good ILBs when you play a 3-4 if you want to fully shut down the run, and we dont have good ILBs. Hopefully one of them ends up being a good player, but I suspect we will be in Nickel again more than our base 3-4. Which means Rapp will be dropping down and helping out a lot. That is the front that gets our best players on the field, but it will be tough for us to be great against the run with our ILB core IMO.

You say that we don’t have good ILB’s, MachS.

We don’t know that. What we do know is that our ILB candidates are inexperienced. Those are two far different things.

it us my opinion that at least 2 or more of our ILB candidates will step up and be just fine, maybe even better than ‘just fine’.

One is likely gonna be Kiser, the other is tbd. They’re likely to play less than 30% of the snaps, anyway.

 

[MachS]

You say that we don’t have good ILB’s, MachS.

We don’t know that. What we do know is that our ILB candidates are inexperienced. Those are two far different things.

it us my opinion that at least 2 or more of our ILB candidates will step up and be just fine, maybe even better than ‘just fine’.

One is likely gonna be Kiser, the other is tbd. They’re likely to play less than 30% of the snaps, anyway.

Good players are proven players at the NFL level. I dont know why you want to argue semantics, ILB is our weakest unit on defense by a large margin.

Some of the young players may have talent, but they're not good until they prove it in NFL games when it counts. Sorry. And looking at their draft position and impact thus far during their time in the NFL, it can be argued if they're even talented enough to be good players.

You are optimistic that we have good ILBs...and I'm hopeful for that as well. But until we have statistical or video evidence of that, the position is classified as a weakness. You evaluate performance and talent with your eyes and your brain, not your heart. I mean we started fucking Troy Reeder at ILB last year lets be honest. The player (Kaiser) who was supposed to fill that starting spot was injured before the season and has yet to take one real NFL snap. We all have our fingers crossed, but we had a hole at ILB last year next to Littleton, then proceeded to lose Littleton in FA. Probability is we field a below average ILB core this season. Which isn't the end of the world as I said we will likely be in Nickel more than anything and I expect the defense to be very good overall.

 

[fearsomefour]

You say that we don’t have good ILB’s, MachS.

We don’t know that. What we do know is that our ILB candidates are inexperienced. Those are two far different things.

it us my opinion that at least 2 or more of our ILB candidates will step up and be just fine, maybe even better than ‘just fine’.

One is likely gonna be Kiser, the other is tbd. They’re likely to play less than 30% of the snaps, anyway.

Having interior lineman that can take on blocks....Robinson, SJD, Gaines, Brockers....will help the interior LB run play a lot.
Finding a couple of guys that will fill gaps and not try to ole blockers will do the rest.
6 YPC to 3.5 YPC makes everything....the pass rush, the back end of the D.....much better.

 

[BonifayRam]

This 2020 Ram overall complete DL UNIT is one of the best assembled DL's for us in well over a decade. The DL & secondary should be @ the top rankings this NFL this season.

Utilizing a rested fresh Aaron Donald moving & constantly changing his DL post on a constant rotational basis thus keeping the entire OL trying to guess & prepare for him would cause constant offensive turmoil & breakdowns in the OL. Brockers/Robinson & Joseph-Day are good solid starters alone then add in Donald? World ending situations for OL's.

Most all NFL teams year after year can not fully field operational OL's from week to week due to various reasons but mostly injuries but also due to way the NFL makes it. These weak OL's can be easy prey for teams like the Rams this season.

DE/5 tech- Donald/ Robinson/ M. Copeland/ J. Williams
NT- Donald/ Joseph-Day/ G. Gaines/ M. Hoecht
DT/3 tech- Donald/ Brockers/ M. Fox/ E. Banks/ S Renner

 

[BonifayRam]

I have some rose colored glasses on. Where these DL'ers were drafted does not come into my thoughts on how I see this under contract DL unit for 2020.

I see a perfect half dozen members of a DL unit with the right mixture of talent & skills & the magic seasoning for the new DC Staley defense.

Just to clear things up some here.....I was not including coach Chris Shula ER's & OLB'ing unit in the discussion.