Turf Show Times
Between Tre’Davious White in free agency and Jared Verse in the draft, the L.A. Rams are coming back new
After having already replaced the departed Raheem Morris at defensive coordinator with Chris Shula, the Los Angeles Rams went into March free agency with a defensive depth chart that looked something like this, courtesy of OurLads:
If free agency the draft work as planned by Sean McVay and Les Snead, then the Rams will come out of training camp having replaced at least six of those “starters” and perhaps as many as eight. The present depth chart, which hasn’t been good news for some players who had been hanging by a thread, looks more like this:
For a 2023 defensive that was neither horrible nor great, will these changes be enough to overcome the retirement of Aaron Donald and perhaps even make L.A. harder to move the ball against in 2024?
Forgive me and by all means correct me if you think my “replaces” position isn’t accurate enough, I’m just putting two corners here and two corners later, not doing an exact science. Witherspoon led all Rams defensive players in snaps last season with 1,060, but the team has made no known effort to retain him. In fact, he is still a free agent despite PFF doing what they do and trying to convince you during the season that there’s a number for every player that show they’re the best in the league (so that you will retweet them).
The NFL clearly doesn’t think Ahkello is a starting cornerback or he would be signed right now. To be fair, the league didn’t think Ahkello was starter material last year either and he was fine, but the Rams wanted an upgrade and brought back Williams on a three-year contract. That’s a hefty price to pay unless the Rams truly feel Williams is a significant upgrade to Witherspoon.
Williams played 1,035 snaps with the Jaguars last season and is poised to get the most snaps in L.A.’s secondary in 2024.
Whenever you’re desperately screaming at ESPN during the draft to get the Rams to fill a need in the fourth or fifth or sixth round, just remember that Durant and Kendrick are not only typical results of those picks...they’re actually pretty good picks for the fourth and sixth rounds, respectively.
Durant’s given the Rams three interceptions and 29 games of service. Kendrick has been a boom or bust corner with 32 games, 18 starts, and he’s been eating snaps while L.A. looks for upgrades. As depth, fourth and sixth round picks are working out fine. As starters, not so much.
What the Rams need to worry about is how many starts Kendrick and Durant will still make in 2024 because of White’s injuries.
White has missed 24 games in the past two seasons and his missed six games the year before that....
