The defense

[CoachAllred]

And I hated how often we dropped Floyd into coverage. I also need to see some more aggressiveness in terms of coverages and blitzes. It looked very bland.

Couldn't agree more. It's still early so hopefully this game was an outlier.
I hated watching us give up the short game time and time again, running game as well.
Our tackling will improve. I just thought we would approach Dalton differently in that
we take away the short game and force him to make plays downfield, allowing our pass rush to be more affective
and forcing Dalton to throw down field, which is not his strength.

 

[LA_Rams_#29]

Not happy with the Defense... Although AD had an abnormally bad game... From a scheme and personnel standpoint... I'm seeing some regression. First off as a UCLA fan, I've been pulling for Kenny Young for years...but the prospect of him being our primary ILB for the season is more than scary... our run defense was pretty bad yesterday, and Kenny seemed out of position a lot...which isn't something that's rare for him. He was solid last year...for the first time in the NFL really...because he played primarily next to another ILB.. with him being THE guy....I just can't imagine that going well for the season. No preseason reps for our first string plays a role in this...but that looked more like Wade Phillips towards the end of his tenure than I'd like to see. We played situational and Reeder got a few snaps on obvious run downs...but I'm sorry.... that ILB play was not what it was last season. I'm concerned and I hope some film review will bring about some adjustments..

on the positive.... Hollins played well...Long played well...and it was nice to see Rochelle make some plays too...

 

[XXXIVwin]

I get what you are saying regarding Floyd but there is a bigger picture of his role I believe. It has to do with the way he contains the midgets of the division and chases them down when they try to flee the pocket.

No one ever saw Floyd as a pure pass rusher, nor is he getting paid for that.

Hope u are right on this.

Best play I ever saw Floyd make was when he was 1-on-1 versus Wilson last year. Wilson escaped the pocket to his left, where Floyd was waiting. Russell faked the run, then pulled back to pass. Floyd cut off the run angle, then launched toward Russell and hit his elbow before he could complete the throwing motion. All in all, just looked like a really smart and athletic play on Floyd's part that not many guys could pull off.

 

[dang]

Didn’t play one down preseason

Is anyone really surprised they’re not in mid season form?

The defense will Adjust and ascend each week until they hit their peak by mid-season. We lost too many players to hit the ground running so I did not expect them to dominate coming out of the gates.

 

[BonifayRam]

I observed OLB'er Floyd having issues & favoring putting weight on one of his ankles later in the game. He looked far from being 100%.

 

[Merlin]

I mentioned this on another board and while I'm thinking about will put it here too. Look at the defensive call on the first drive, at midfield, when we gave up that big run.

Situation was 2nd and 6. That is a run down. Rams are in a two deep look pre-snap. Bears are in a condensed formation on said run down. At the snap neither safety moves. Both on their heels.

Way I look at it is Morris' primary goal is to ensure he's got the right players in the right part of the field. Call looks like straight Cover 2. On a run down, at midfield, vs a run formation, when the team really needs a stop to force a punt before they're out of real estate.

Now maybe Morris is rusty. But this correlates back to what I've been talking about with the guy. I have the highest hopes going forward as always. But this first game has not allayed my preseason concerns.

 

[Pupped]

I mentioned this on another board and while I'm thinking about will put it here too. Look at the defensive call on the first drive, at midfield, when we gave up that big run.

Situation was 2nd and 6. That is a run down. Rams are in a two deep look pre-snap. Bears are in a condensed formation on said run down. At the snap neither safety moves. Both on their heels.

Way I look at it is Morris' primary goal is to ensure he's got the right players in the right part of the field. Call looks like straight Cover 2. On a run down, at midfield, vs a run formation, when the team really needs a stop to force a punt before they're out of real estate.

Now maybe Morris is rusty. But this correlates back to what I've been talking about with the guy. I have the highest hopes going forward as always. But this first game has not allayed my preseason concerns.

I'm just hoping that some of these calls were just the product of believing in a conservative game plan against this opponent and trying to ease into the season without showing too much.

Because, yeah... that's too soft to continue, imo.

 

[CGI_Ram]

There was a lot I liked out there;

Ramsey made plays. We need our star players to stand out, he consistently does.

We held them to 14. You never felt like the Bears would get on a roll offensively.

David Long seemed to pass the test. He stood up guys on a few tackles.

Hollins having a good game is big for us.

 

[oldnotdead]

Let's see what Morris does against the Colts. Hopefully, he will tailor his approach to the opponent. I understand his philosophy, but simply don't agree with it on a personal level. I've always hated bend not break defenses because in a close game it gives the advantage to the opposing offense to dictate the game.

While the game was close Morris didn't alter his drop, read, react approach to his defense. He wanted the Bears to run, enticing them with a light box. That said it's the same thing Staley did. The difference was how the zone was played. One game is too small of a sample to pass definitive judgment.

There is also the aspect of whether or not Morris is playing to the schedule. He knows he can't give too much away for Tampa (game 3) to digest. That game could have playoff ramifications. So is he playing a relatively standard passive zone simply to win but not give a high end opponent much to study? I hope that is the case. His passive zone will get the Rams beat. You can't simply concede the first 5 yards in every game without having some negative results.

Time of possession is very important against a team like Tampa. I don't believe in making it easy for them. You can't count on an INT bailing you out every time. Staley's defense evolved over time as he got to know his personnel. I'm hoping that is again the case. That he's intentionally keeping it simple to minimize mistakes. But at some point, he needs to start tightening the screws.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Bears 14 Rams 34 - Matthew Stafford exceeds expectations, the defense looks sharp, looking to the Colts & more - 11 Personnel - Podcasts

Jourdan Rodrigue and Rich Hammond are back after the Rams big week 1 win against the Bears. Hear their Matthew Stafford official first impressions, running back talk, searching for flaws and more as they review the win and look ahead to the week 2 matchup at Indianapolis.

theathletic.com

Jourdan and Rich break down the game including the defence. They both think that the D looked sharp.

For those who don't listen, according to Jourdan, all the whingers regarding the defence are flat out wrong and are well off the mark in their evaluation.

 

[shovelpass]

Here's last years numbers for comparisons sake. Seemed to struggle the first few weeks, so not really worried yet. A lot of it seemed to be player rust.

 

[den-the-coach]

Bears 14 Rams 34 - Matthew Stafford exceeds expectations, the defense looks sharp, looking to the Colts & more - 11 Personnel - Podcasts

Jourdan Rodrigue and Rich Hammond are back after the Rams big week 1 win against the Bears. Hear their Matthew Stafford official first impressions, running back talk, searching for flaws and more as they review the win and look ahead to the week 2 matchup at Indianapolis.

theathletic.com

Jourdan and Rich break down the game including the defence. They both think that the D looked sharp.

For those who don't listen, according to Jourdan, all the whingers regarding the defence are flat out wrong and are well off the mark in their evaluation.

Again I think all of us want a great defense, but to be fair, they forced a turnover on the first drive after the Bears had marched 50 yards and closed out the Bears on some 4th down plays. They will have to do a better job against the Colts because the Colts have a superior offensive line to the Bears & IMO a better Head Coach & Play Caller.

Hope they are right, all of us want a superior defense and if you look at the stats, two forced turnovers, 3 sacks 14 points given up, it seems superior, but when you watch the game you feel otherwise.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Again I think all of us want a great defense, but to be fair, they forced a turnover on the first drive after the Bears had marched 50 yards and closed out the Bears on some 4th down plays. They will have to do a better job against the Colts because the Colts have a superior offensive line to the Bears & IMO a better Head Coach & Play Caller.

Hope they are right, all of us want a superior defense and if you look at the stats, two forced turnovers, 3 sacks 14 points given up, it seems superior, but when you watch the game you feel otherwise.

It's not as if Jourdan's evaluation is coming off of looking at the stat sheet though, she arguably has better insight than anyone here because not only can she see what they're doing from the box, she's there at practice getting the behind the scenes look at things. McVay and the coaches count 4th down stops as turnovers as well, and the Rams stopped the Bears on 4th down every single time, not on some 4th down plays. Every 4th down play, that's pretty good if you ask me. The Rams defence played that way intentionally, they dictated the game in that way.

That doesn't mean that the team wont want to improve, that's always the name of the game. However the idea that the Rams defence didn't really perform that well or was sloppy as many here are trying to claim, doesn't seem to mesh with what she is saying, and I trust her insight.

I think people get too caught up in the little dink and dunk stuff. Rams used to dink and dunk down the field too, and didn't win shit. Bears were unable to break the backs of the defence like the Rams were able to, they really didn't have a shot in this game.

 

[Merlin]

While the game was close Morris didn't alter his drop, read, react approach to his defense. He wanted the Bears to run, enticing them with a light box. That said it's the same thing Staley did.

Yes. But what Staley did was invite the run with a light box look while having a post-snap defender flow into the box. So teams would piss away plays by taking the bait and running into unfavorable formations.

IMO what the difference demonstrates is Morris is learning. I am fine with that too btw especially when the defense came up with the big plays they needed to keep the points down.

 

[WestCoastRam]

Yes. But what Staley did was invite the run with a light box look while having a post-snap defender flow into the box. So teams would piss away plays by taking the bait and running into unfavorable formations.

IMO what the difference demonstrates is Morris is learning. I am fine with that too btw especially when the defense came up with the big plays they needed to keep the points down.

Again, I can't really tell without All-22 but it didn't seem like we had as much safety rotation in this game. It's not like Staley rotated into cover-3 (or out-of) a ton in games but he did it a bit. I wonder if not having Johnson has affected that.

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

David Montgomery averaged nearly 7 yards a carry. Dalton was sacked once--late. Yes, somehow the Bears only scored 14 points. But it really felt like the Rams were in a prevent defense all night. Fortunately the offense was explosive. They punted one time.

I expect they will work on fixing the run defense. They have to fix it.

I'm sure that opposing offenses will be attacking with the run until they show they can stop it.

Last year the didn’t get more aggressive until week for. I think with no preseason McVay likes to avoid broken coverages. By playing a prevent style, the ease the defense into regular season form.

 

[oldnotdead]

That's true about Staley and it's again what I saw in the Charger game. This is what I'm saying the real difference is how the scheme is played. Staley was much more aggressive than Morris was in this first game. I'm hoping that with Morris, it will be about evolution of his scheme as he becomes more familiar with his players.

All that said, Baldinger rightly points out how Morris is very aggressive in his use of Ramsey. Also, it was clear as the game wore on that Morris was using both Reeder and Young on the field together more often. What was interesting was how he used Lewis, more in containment than as a pass rusher.

One thing which was apparent is how slow SJD is off the snap. Many times he's the last one off the snap and it's why he's the one being attacked by the OL instead of him doing the attacking. Compared with Gaines and Robinson who both explode off the snap. Granted he was playing a 0T when he was at NT but I've seen other 0T NTs who didn't just wait there and absorb the OL attack. Especially later in the second half when he had both Reeder and Young behind him.

Why am I again harping on this? It's one of the reasons they struggled in stopping the run. That is something they simply can't do against the Colts. Stop the Colt's run game and you jam up their offense. Wentz hasn't shown he can carry the offense in the last few years. Stop the Colts run attack and I don't see Carson being able to score enough to keep up with Stafford's game. Too much of the run yardage came between the tackles. Better play at the POA in that area would help.

With Morris as DC we are going to need to see more of how he uses his players. It appeared he went to man coverage on the perimeter in the second half. Williams uncharacteristically struggled at times. Rochell looks to be playing better than expected for a relatively raw rookie. David Long played well which is a great sign.

 

[Merlin]

Again, I can't really tell without All-22 but it didn't seem like we had as much safety rotation in this game. It's not like Staley rotated into cover-3 (or out-of) a ton in games but he did it a bit. I wonder if not having Johnson has affected that.

Yeah it sucks not having the 22. That's why I cited the big run we gave up, because the replay cut to the endzone cam and showed a really nice look at what happened and you can see both safeties flat-footed at the snap.

I'll say this about Cover 2... With the right players it's still a great defensive scheme. But you gotta have a real mike and smart safeties to make it shine IMO. We do have the safeties.

 

[OnceARam]

The year we went to the super bowl we had the #2 offense and the #14 defense I think. Versus last year having the #1 defense and the #22 offense. Point is, if we can outscore everyone we will win regardless. Having a dominant offense is just better for us. And ultimately giving up 14 on a night when your D didn't play great is encouraging.

Biggest thing to me thats concerning was lack of pass rush. Hollins outplayed Floyd- the $64M man. Thats inexcusable. Obo and Lewis were completely invisible too. The run D will be suspect at times but not too worried about that. We play 2 high safeties majority of the time with light boxes, and we have weak ILBs too. Were just not going to be great against the run. But we HAVE to be able to rush the passer. And IMO Floyd is extremely overrated and opposite him is a question mark. So dont know where the pass rush will come from but it needs to happen. Maybe we start bringing Ramsey on blitzes from the slot.

We only play a two high pre snap. This was the genius of our last DC. The new DC has kept the concept and made JR a joker or star. Also, we went vanilla after it was apparent that CHI was JV.

 

[OntarioRam]

Here's last years numbers for comparisons sake. Seemed to struggle the first few weeks, so not really worried yet. A lot of it seemed to be player rust.

View attachment 47990

This. Way too early to tell after just 1 week. I would have liked a more aggressive defensive approach but let's see how the defence evolves as times goes on before getting down on Morris. First day on the job and people are already writing him off as not being good enough for this roster. Harsh. And hasty.