Where’s the development of youngsters?
Why does Ramsey seem to be regressing?
Why can’t Rochell, Durant, and Lake even sniff the field? It’s certainly not because Kendrick, Long, and Rapp are playing lights out.
Do we have an asst coaching problem? Seems like a helluva stretch to suggest that Snead drafted so many inadequate secondary players, don’t you think? Can’t keep using the injury excuse anymore in our secondary.
Scheme, players, or coaching? Which is it? Or is it all of them?
Results, baby. We’re not getting results in our secondary among other position groups. Sigh…
Here's my take on this...
Since Staley came aboard the Rams in 20' the Rams adopted his Defense. Which is primarily zone, with a star player essentially roaming the field as a type of hybrid SS/LB following the opposing QB's eyes. Ramsey is the logical player for this position. He has a nose for the ball and can lay the wood when playing at the LOS. I can remember a handful of games where he came up with the INT to seal the game.
Staley was the Commode and chief of this defense, you could tell McVay was hands off and let him do his thing. He's honestly one hell of a defensive mind... Now we have to remember that Morris inherited this defense, and it's scheme, and for whatever reason McVay wanted to keep this defensive scheme intact with the hire of Morris. Morris didn't call this type of defensive scheme when calling plays for the Bucs or Atlanta. While he did run a zone heavy D he did not incorporate the star role until he came to the Rams. So this is not his bread n butter
The reason why I'm bringing this up is, this is now McVays defense. He obviously made the decision for better or worse to continue with this scheme. With the loss of players like D Williams, Fuller (to injury), SJD, and Von Miller etc this defense had no chance of being what is what last year or years prior. Not to mention players are now exiting their primes and will continue to age and slow.
I believe the Rams woes are based on losing personnel, players aging out, and Raheem not play calling to his strengths.
As far as Ramsey losing a step. I think not. I think he's a victim of his own success. While playing with the Jags, and when brought over to the Rams he was mainly man vs the other teams top WR/TE threat. Obviously that changed when the Rams defensive scheme changed. But in short, I'm a believer if you're not solely working on
that craft you will become rusty and a liability, which we have seen over the last two seasons when Ramsey switches over to man coverage.
My main conclusion about this is the Rams are playing the Wrong scheme. This scheme is solely setup to play when playing with a lead. Which is a whole other discussion. But announcer after announcer some of whom are ex QB's say this about the Rams. Keep playing ten yards off the ball every play and the offenses are going to slowly drive the ball down the field. And that gentlemen is exactly what we're seeing. Death by a thousand paper cuts.
A couple of thoughts..
I agree.. where are Rochell and Durant, specifically? Lake's been injured for a long time, so I have minimal hopes of seeing him do much this season.
I'd like to see Yeast get in there more.
This secondary isn't what I'd call good.. but I think things could get much worse by just throwing a bunch of young guys out there at the same time. You want them to learn. I think ramping them up, mixing them in, would be great.
I know no one likes Rapp.. but he's not nearly as bad as they hype train on this site. He does some things well and knows the defense.
Ramsey is getting older. It happens. But he'll be a helluva safety for a few years, imo.
The scheme plays primarily zone... I say that's because they have no one, other than Ramsey, who can really play press. Others disagree.
Coaches are often wrong about playing one player over another. Take Evans for example, the man shouldn't be on a NFL roster. Yet the Rams have kept him now for 3 seasons in hopes he would develop. But facts are he's been a hinderance in every way possible. The only reason why he's still on the roster is because he's a 3rd round pick and optics are important to a HC and GM.
Rapp, is another player who is either playing out of position or should be a back role type player. One thing I'll say about Rapp is he looked a hell of a lot better when playing with Staley in his rookie season vs Morris. So I'm gonna chalk that one up to the Rams failing to develop a decent player and Morris being out of his element with this defensive scheme, See above.
"I'm a fan, and based upon my casual observations, I think that, perhaps, the best players are not playing or, at least, players with more upside than the ones on the field are not getting sufficient playing time. It must be that someone on the coaching staff is borderline incompetent."
Is that how it works?
Look... coaches are fallible. That's why many of them fail, and they're frequently fired.
But they still know more than we do.
I don't know what they're seeing from Rochell or Durant in practice, or in their in-depth evaluation of game tapes. So I'm not prepared to condemn the coaching or scouting.
I will offer another possibility, though...
The offense is historically inept, and puts a massive amount of pressure on the defense. The pass rush has been lacking (we've discussed ad nauseum whether its a lack of quality pass rushers, the scheme, or both, so I'm not going to elaborate there). So, perhaps, the DBs are playing at an extremely high level of difficulty.
Sorry if that analysis does not let us hone in on one or two guys and call for their heads.
Sometimes, its just not that simple.
Sometimes I wonder if coaches know more than some of the Fans. X's and O's they surely know more than we do. But at times, many times in fact coaches keep players playing above others due to their draft status, rather than on the field success. I mean I could name a hundred players that were top picks that flunked out of the NFL. So yes coaches are very fallible as you pointed out. Coaches often get into trouble or fired because as I pointed out above. optics.
A coach I like to use as an example of this is Pete Carrol. Matt Flynn and Russel Wilson, by all accounts Flynn was supposed to be the Seahawks starting QB of the future. The Hawks drafted Wilson in the 2012 3rd round as a potential fail safe or backup and the rest is history.
Point is Coaches like Carrol don't give a shit about optics and his record speaks for itself. Love him or hate him, he's a great coach and talent evaluator. I mean look what he did with Geno Smith this year. A QB destined to ride the bench for his career is now one of the best QB's in the NFL. This isn't by luck.
