There were 3 players on the ‘21 Rams team that exceeded my expectations by a country mile…

[Rams43]

Both Von Miller and OBJ were VERY pleasant surprises, to be sure. Both exceeded my modest expectations and were big parts of our success in playoffs and SB.

But there were 3 players that just blew the doors off in terms of wildly exceeding my admittedly modest expectations. Mind blowingly exceeded them, tbh.

In no particular order:

A’Shawn Robinson. I had relegated him to the role of underachiever after getting paid. Boy, was I Wrong! Whether inspired by AD, Miller, and the like or not he turned into a late season BEAST. A world class run stopper. Played light years better than previously and wildly beyond my expectations. Might have become a ‘must have’ even on a cap strapped team like the Rams.

Nick Scott. Progressed from a ST demon draft pick to a human highlight reel in his first 3 years. Who can ever forget that hit on Deebo? But it’s more than just highlight reel plays. Scott now makes plays all over the field including timely interceptions. He is now far from the weakest link on a very impressive D. I look forward to seeing him continue to improve as a starter this year. Another Snead gem for a growing collection. Looks like a lottery winning 7th round pick.

Last, but certainly not least, is Eric Weddle. His direct contributions and his intangibles during that playoff run are storybook stuff. Almost fairytale stuff in the sense of too-good-to-be-true. Think about this storyline. Retired for 2 years and has been playing pickup basketball games with friends. Gets a call from Raheem Morris and invited to join a SB caliber team decimated with injuries in the secondary for a playoff run. He then joined coaches and players with which he was unfamiliar and in an evolving scheme also new to him on the fly in a do-or-die playoff scenario. Even played through a torn pec in the SB. Think about that. Yet he not only played well himself but looked like he’d been back there for 5 years. He settled down and solidified that D to a point that I thought was jaw dropping. If a writer wrote this Weddle script I think his editor would demand that he dial this back. Too much like a fairytale.

Thoughts?

 

[Soul Surfer]

Yes.

 

[RamsSince1969]

Another thoughtful post by Rams43? Not surprised! Always exceeding my expectations.

 

[thirteen28]

I might add Greg Gaines to the list. He wasn't necessarily bad or an underachiever before, but he became a freakin' beast by the end of the season. Before this season I was on the fence about whether I wanted him to get his second contract in horns. Not on the fence anymore, not (as you say) by a country mile.

 

[Reddog99]

Nick Scott and Ashawn Robinson are two that I immediately thought of when I read the title. Those guys took it up another notch in the post season. A few others that came to mind shortly after were Greg Gaines, Earnest Jones and Brian Allen.

 

[majrleaged]

I might add Greg Gaines to the list. He wasn't necessarily bad or an underachiever before, but he became a freakin' beast by the end of the season. Before this season I was on the fence about whether I wanted him to get his second contract in horns. Not on the fence anymore, not (as you say) by a country mile.

Agreed and I want to point out a play he got absolutely no credit for. It was the 3rd and 1 I at the end of the game, right before the AD sack. AD made a great play holding off a block and reaching out with 1 arm to pull the cincy RB back. Except he wasn't alone. On the other side of AD and the RB was Gaines. In fact cincy makes that 1st down without Gaines being there. Gaines is stopping him before AD gets a hold of him. If either of those guys aren't there it's a 1st down. Look close and you see another Ram whose number you can't see in that play.
Gaines came up big.

 

[thirteen28]

Agreed and I want to point out a play he got absolutely no credit for. It was the 3rd and 1 I at the end of the game, right before the AD sack. AD made a great play holding off a block and reaching out with 1 arm to pull the cincy RB back. Except he wasn't alone. On the other side of AD and the RB was Gaines. In fact cincy makes that 1st down without Gaines being there. Gaines is stopping him before AD gets a hold of him. If either of those guys aren't there it's a 1st down. Look close and you see another Ram whose number you can't see in that play.
Gaines came up big.

You are absolutely correct on that - GG stood him up and allowed AD to pull him back. Good catch.

 

[Da-Rock]

I agree with all, but I would immediately add Greg Gaines. He has been so good. His speed for a big guy is impressive.

 

[RamUK]

Agreed with all the aforementioned, but would add Matt Gay.

Not that he didn't do well the second half of the previous year, but I was just waiting for the wheels to fall off.

 

[Rams43]

Agreed that there were lots of player pleasant surprises and some terrific progress by many coaches, not the least of whom was Morris.

But the thread title included the phrase ‘by a country mile’.

The 3 that I mentioned certainly met that requirement. The others definitely played very well and even exceeded expectations but I don’t think they quite met the ‘country mile’ definition.

Just imho, of course.

 

[RamsOfCastamere]

A'Shawn was definitely inspired by AD, Von, and Brock. I think he had a Detroit mentally coming here, using the COVID rule to miss a couple of games. But AD and Brock inspired him to work on his body in the offseason. And during the Niners game, you can see him taking AD's speech to heart. He definitely will get more play on running downs next year.

 

[rdlkgliders]

I remember when we picked Scott in the 7th round, he was a great special teams player. It seemed most of us were in line with the idea that he was selected to play special teams (a Fassel pick) and likely wouldn't contribute much beyond that. He was one of Fassel's highest ever graded ST players. He has progressed as a contributor on defense and appeared in a career-best 17 games up from 15 last season and he recorded 25 tackles compared to 11 in 20'
It will be fun to see how much he can contribute and improve this upcoming season. For a guy projected as a career ST player with a low ceiling, he has done quite well

 

[RAMSinLA]

The only man that let me down last season was the 12th man. Come on LA your team won a Superbowl on their second SB appearance in 5 years. Pack the stadium next season in Rams colors.

 

[Alaskan Ram]

Aaron Donald exceeded my expectations.
The playoff loss to Green Bay, with those bruised ribs -- he proved to be a mere mortal human after all; not the cyborg we all secretly suspected.

I knew he'd heal up, but deep down I doubted his ability to stay elite. I expected some form of decline. Still great...but a little less great.

I was wrong. He had his best year yet. And to end the NFC championship game AND the Super Bowl the way he did - - with walk off defensive stops ? -- that's legendary stuff.

 

[Merlin]

When you start talking about groups exceeding expectations (which last season there were a lot of players who succeeded in doing that) I think the conversation needs to give the coaching some cred too.

Seemed to me like the DL group as a whole stepped up in 2021. I think Henderson's performance was crucial, he really squeezed the most from the room (he had OLB too but this year that group will be Bogardus). Now he was gifted a great player down the stretch in Von, however the production almost to a man in that room were near the top of expectation which was remarkable to me.

Look at the secondary in comparison, where guys seemed out of synch for much of the year. This year they're going to get Shula added as the secondary boss which is one of the more intriguing 2022 storylines on this staff. I don't think that's a mistake from a couple different perspectives. First I think they wanted better comms with that room in terms of translating the coaching points to the players at a higher level. I think there was some confusion by guys back there, much more than the previous year, and that's even accounting for the loss of JJ which was significant. And secondly I think they wanted to prep Shula for the DC gig, where he will be DC in waiting behind Raheem.

Shula last season had the ILBs only and I think for what he was given he did a good job. He had them playing fast and we won a Super Bowl with Reeder holding down the job. You can't expect him to remove Reeder's limitations, and he didn't, but he did enough good things that the job got done. If we consider Shula's performance the previous season he did the same thing with an undergunned OLB room. So even though he and McVay are close friends he's had to perform to earn those new jobs he's been getting to season his experience level and all he's missing now is the back end experience which he should be getting this year from Raheem.

Another coach that stood out to me was Carberry. He had to deal with some injuries though he fortunately had Whit in the big games, but if you look closely at the way this OL played you'll see significant gains from week one to the Super Bowl. Good example is watching just the 9er games. In game one the OL was baffled by the stunts and games SF played up front. By the NFC Championship game however we could see the difference in the way the line was handling all that, completely nullifying nicely timed stunts particularly on the right side where Hav & Corbs were executing textbook pass pro.

So the coaching element I think is really important as a fit with the Rams' approach to roster building. To be a coach on this staff you gotta be able to get production out of the average Joes that surround the studs they pick up in trade. Oh and lastly there were a lot of strides made by the ST group as the season went on too, some of it simply by tweaking personnel like finding a return guy but the coverage and return teams both seemed to be on a consistent improvement arc. Hopefully all this continues in 2022. We'll see what the corner and edge rooms look like by the time the draft is over.

 

[RamDino]

Agree with everything 43 posted... as usual, but I think we are talking about the playoffs and not the regular season? If that is the case, I would also mention Cooper Kupp, who basically won all the playoff games by himself -lol. I'm not sure that qualifies as "by a country mile" but who would have thought that Kupp was going to carry that historic regular season right into the playoffs.

But I also have to give a shout-out to Kendall Blanton, who played great after Higbee went down, and even... wait for it... Brycen Hopkins... who actually had like 4 catches in the biggest NFL game (and ONLY NFL game) of his life! And he even had a nice block on that 4th and 1 run with Kupp. I know he basically just stood in the guy's way while Kupp cut back, but it worked. Hopefully that game will build up his confidence a bit.

And finally... Matthew Stafford was LIGHTS OUT in all four playoff games, especially in the clutch!

It's kinda hard to pick out just a few guys when almost the entire team played great. I guess that means we should also include Shawn McVay, who stuck to the run and ultimately led the team to the Super Bowl and won it!

PS - I also think Von and OBJ should be included in the OP. They didn't look that great in the regular season, but they sure turned it on when the playoffs started!