LOS ANGELES — Two weeks ago, the 1-3 Los Angeles Rams made a few not-so-subtle changes to their secondary.
Veteran cornerback Tre White was a healthy scratch in Week 5 against the Green Bay Packers after starting each previous game. The Rams got another veteran, Darious Williams, back from a hamstring injury, so the cornerbacks rotation featured Williams, Cobie Durant and Ahkello Witherspoon — the latter of whom was not on a team in the offseason or preseason until the Rams re-signed him to their practice squad on Sept. 11.
White, who was signed to a one year, $4.25 million deal this spring, was targeted 18 times for 12 catches and a 138.4 opponent passer rating, plus four touchdowns and no interceptions according to Pro Football Reference. Rams coaches gushed about White’s leadership and work ethic the moment he arrived in Los Angeles — though often added the caveat that they wouldn’t rush the 29-year-old to the field as White continued recovering from the Achilles repair he underwent the previous fall.
It’s possible he still wasn’t quite ready to return, a point head coach Sean McVay alluded to this week. Williams couldn’t start the year due to his injury, and backup Derion Kendrick tore his ACL at the beginning of training camp. The Rams lagged in signing Witherspoon until Sept. 11, and because he had not been with a team during the spring or in training camp he needed a couple of weeks to get his legs under him. That meant a full-time role for White was immediately necessary.
“Oh yeah, it did,” said McVay, when asked whether injuries accelerated White’s timeline. “(He is) a pro’s pro. A guy that has continuously responded and shown the work capacity (and) the character capacity to be able to handle a lot of different situations. … A lot of the plans that we had relative to this team or as it relates to what you’re asking about were very different from what’s unfolded. That’s our reality. Because we were so injury prone at that spot, defensively in particular (and at) some other spots offensively, that did accelerate the amount of snaps that he was going to play.”
McVay said this week the Rams will stick with Williams and Durant, and with Witherspoon. Durant, a third-year cornerback, is awed by the way his veteran teammate White is handling the situation — and learning from him.
“I see how he’s attacking each day, he didn’t take (any) steps back,” said Durant, “he just keeps going forward. Not being an a-hole about the position he’s in. He’s still coaching us. He’s still practicing hard, giving it everything he’s got. It’s just like, the way he’s going about it … you want leaders in that room that (if there is) a time when you’re going to be in that position, you never know, seeing him and how he handled it — that’s the way you want to go about it.”
More changes: Third-round rookie Kam Kinchens had been in the safety rotation in the two games after veteran safety John Johnson III hurt his shoulder and went on injured reserve. But Kinchens got no defensive snaps in Week 5 against Green Bay, and instead undrafted free agent Jaylen McCollough substituted in for certain packages and played 15 snaps (including an interception for a touchdown) against the Packers. Where the Rams initially leaned on their safeties in sub packages such as nickel/star (five defensive backs) and dime/dime linebacker (six defensive backs), previous nickel/star Quentin Lake, a team captain, was moved back into a deep safety role opposite Kamren Curl; the latter rotated more often against Green Bay than in previous weeks toward the line of scrimmage and even in pressure packages. Rookie cornerback Josh Wallace then moved into the slot, playing 31 defensive snaps.
Lake was playing well at nickel and rotated between there and traditional safety, but was moved to a deeper-field position where he can view and help organize the entire defense at once after coaches and players noted communication issues throughout the unit. He doesn’t wear the “green dot” — the player with the microphone in his helmet who receives the calls from defensive coordinator Chris Shula; inside linebacker Troy Reeder opened the season in that role — but Lake will share some of the responsibility.
“That’s the biggest thing that I had talked about with everybody, is the communication aspect,” he said. “When you’re in the back end, and sometimes there can be a communication drop-off, it can lead to bigger plays. For us, if you look at all of our games we have to minimize those explosive plays.”
Lake told the coaching staff to play him wherever they most need him.
“Now, my role has changed a little bit just to primarily play safety,” he said. “To me, it’s fine. … For me, it’s (about) high-level communication and minimizing explosive plays and the deep balls, and making plays too — not just batting it down, (but) interceptions, all those things. And then it’s getting everybody in the right position so that everybody can play fast.”
The Rams have showed some improvement on defense since the season began, but still rank No. 30 in defensive DVOA, rank No. 31 in defensive rushing success rate (teams can successfully run the ball against them at a 52.7 percent rate) plus 35 combined explosive passing and rushing plays (No. 23). A whopping 12 explosive plays allowed in Week 2 against Arizona slightly skew these numbers.
McVay indicated Monday that many of these adjustments to the defensive backfield — only some of which are injury-related — will remain intact with more changes coming on both sides of the ball. The Rams re-signed defensive tackle Jonah Williams off the Minnesota Vikings’ practice squad, and he may soon get more snaps as he’s previously familiar with the defense. Second-year defensive tackle and captain Kobie Turner, whose 20 pressures rank fifth among all interior defensive linemen according to TruMedia, was supposed to play more three-technique this season but has rotated at times back into nose tackle where he spent his rookie season. Asked ahead of Week 5 what younger inside linebackers Jake Hummel or Omar Speights — the latter player about whom Rams coaches expressed their excitement right before trading veteran captain Ernest Jones IV to Tennessee — could do to earn more opportunities, McVay said, “you continue to give those guys opportunities throughout the course of these practices, and if it got to a point where we felt like that was the best option for us, then those guys would be out there.”
On offense, injuries have led to most personnel changes but the coaching staff could still make more. Top receivers Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua have been out, but Kupp could possibly return from his ankle injury in Week 7 against the Raiders and participated in individual drills on Wednesday (but did not practice fully).
McVay wants to keep building competition at receiver and other offensive positions. Second-year receiver Xavier Smith could see an increased role, because he’s versatile enough to impact the screen and sweep concepts the Rams like to deploy to complement their run game and help mitigate pressure (quarterback Matthew Stafford has been hit 40 times, third-most in the NFL). Just three weeks ago, Smith was playing the role of opposing receivers as a practice squad player on the Rams’ scout team — but he never took himself out of the offense’s playbook, spending extra time to stay looped in on game plans and assignments.
“Sticking to the basics, sticking to what got me to this point. … If it got me here, I’m pretty sure it can take me all the way through,” said Smith this week. “Even before, I was doing this already. I was already preparing. … Now it’s just repetition and doing what I’ve been doing.”
More McVay on Kupp: “There’s a possibility that he’ll play, but we’ll see how today goes. He’s trending in the right direction, but we’ll see exactly what that means as the week progresses.” https://t.co/CdmViVbhpE
— Jourdan Rodrigue (@JourdanRodrigue) October 16, 2024
Guard/tackle Joe Noteboom, who has been on IR (ankle), had his 21-day practice window activated Wednesday and could play as early as Sunday. McVay mentioned on his weekly “The Coach McVay Show” appearance that he wants to see competition along the interior offensive line in practices, which currently features rookie center Beaux Limmer and third-string left guard Logan Bruss (it’s unlikely that McVay was referencing starting right guard Kevin Dotson here; the indication could be that Noteboom may compete at left guard).
Running back Kyren Williams is only averaging 3.8 yards per carry, a deceptively poor statistic that is more reflective of the Rams’ game situations and their offensive line play than his actual production. Williams’ rushing success rate actually ranks second among all running backs who have 60 or more carries this season (47.4 percent), his 360 yards rank No. 11 and six touchdowns tie for second. Still, rookie third-rounder Blake Corum could get more touches as the season continues — keeping Williams fresh down the back stretch of the season with Corum in complement was the plan entering the season, thrown into chaos because of all of the injuries along the offensive line. Against Green Bay, Corum got five carries to spell Williams and ripped off 25 yards with a 12-yard long run.
Other adjustments have to go beyond personnel changes if the Rams want to really put their season back together. Poor red zone execution and at times odd call sequencing have saddled the Rams with a 24th-ranked touchdown rate there, although they have gotten into the red zone the 11th-most times in the NFL this season despite only having played five games. Turnovers, including a baffling interception thrown by Stafford in Week 5, have also swung close games.
“With the exception of one game, we had opportunities where there are moments to be able to execute (and) to come out with different results in three of our four losses,” McVay said. “That’s true because the film illustrates that. … The gap isn’t as far away. Ultimately, this league is about margins and so how do we really do that? Whether you look at it as a positive or negative, we’ve been in this situation before. What we are going to choose to do is swing and continue to focus on the things that we can improve.”
(Top photo of Darious Williams and Sean McVay: Robert Hanashiro / Imagn Images)
