If you had the chance to sit down and identify the LA Rams top three players on defense ahead of the 2024 NFL season, could you do it? Perhaps, and perhaps not. But if you had to take the team’s top trio on the defensive side of the football, and compare them against the other 31 NFL team’s top defensive trios, that would prove to be a bit more difficult, wouldn’t it?
Even those of use who are more intimately aware of the Rams roster might struggle to identify the top three players for the upcoming season. But then a grossly inappropriate comparison of apples to oranges against other NFL defenses would be incredibly challenging.
So what chance does a Sports Illustrated writer who is only casually aware of the team’s roster, and not even able to get a good grasp of the team’s defensive structure, have of getting it right? Based on the results of Sports Illustrated Gilberto Manzano’s recent article ranking top defensive trios, those chances are not good at all.
Of course, there is a shroud of uncertainty over the Rams defense this season. Not only does the team face the retirement of All-Pro defensive tackle Aaron Donald, but the entire defense has been recast once again. By all intents and purposes, the secondary has been reconfigured for the 2024 NFL season with at least four new starters. And the 11-player defensive group is almost certainly about to rely on seven new starters this season.
The only players returning from last year’s defense who are most likely to start in 2024 include: NT Kobie Turner (albeit sliding over to cover Aaron Donald’s role at DT), NT Bobby Brown, OLB Byron Young, and ILB Ernest Jones. That is not a lot of continuity for a defense that was middle of the road in 2023. With so many changes, will this defense be any better in 2024? Before we answer that, let’s pivot to Gilberto Manzano’s article, and dig into where he may have missed the mark:
Two out of three ain’t bad, it’s horribly misleading
Where I think the primary hiccup occurs in Gilberto Manzano’s approach to ranking the top trio from this LA Rams defense is the fact that he misses the mark completely. I would nominate three of players from this group of four as the top trio for this team: NT Kobie Turner, ILB Ernest Jones, OLB Byron Young, DB Darious Williams.
Of that group, you have two rookies who are entering their second seasons, both of whom led all 2023 rookies in quarterback sacks. You have an inside linebacker who was one of the NFL’s top tacklers from one year ago. And in Darious Williams, you have a ball-hawking defensive back who is both well-respected and considered one of the top cornerbacks in the NFL.
Instead, Manzano names Kobie Turner, Ernest Jones, and returning from injury Tre’Davious White. Here is what he writes about this trio:
“After a breakout rookie season, Turner will have the daunting task of replacing Aaron Donald as the team’s top defensive lineman. Turner, a 2023 third-round pick, recorded nine sacks last season. Jones was a consistent sideline-to-sideline playmaker during his first season as the team’s starting middle linebacker. If White stays healthy, the Rams could have a productive defense despite Donald’s retirement”
All I see in that write-up is negativity. For example, he cites Kobie Turner as solely responsible for taking over the role of Aaron Donald, but completely ignoring the fact that Turner’s rookie numbers were quite comparable to The Great One’s production in 2023. He fails to discuss just how devastatingly productive Ernest Jones was for this team, despite playing in just 15 of 17 games.
Breaking down what’s broken with that assessment
Let’s break that point down with a bit more detail. Ernest Jones put up145 tackles in just 15 games in 2023. Had he competed in all 17 games (one absence by injury, one absence by coach’s decision), he projected to have 164 tackles. Where would that have landed him? That would have placed him among the NFL’s Top 5 tackles for 2023.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of his ‘selection’ of the top three defensive players on the Rams roster was the fixation upon cornerback Tre’Davious White. It makes zero sense to include White among the Rams’ top three defenders, because his write-up states specifically:
“If White stays healthy”
– SI’s Gilberto Manzano
How can he include DB Tre’Davious White with a straight face with the presumption that White may not even stay healthy in 2024? And he does so knowing that the other veteran defensive back, Darious Williams, is a ball-hawking cornerback who hauled in four interceptions in 2023, good enough to be the 7th-ranked pickoff artist in the NFL.
And I hate to break this news to Manzano, but Darious Williams ended the 2023 NFL season as the third-highest-ranking cornerback in the NFL. That is not based on subjective optics but on Pro Football Focus’s final 2023 cornerback ranking. Tre’Davious White did not even make the list.
And then, there is the oversight of not even mentioning the fact that Rams second-year outside linebacker Byron Young was the best in slot among all rookie outside linebackers in 2023. Young’s production outshone that of every other edge rusher from the 2023 NFL Draft, despite not hearing his name until the 77th overall selection in Round 3. It seems as though the NFL’s aristocracy holds a bias against players who are not touted leading up to an NFL Draft. No other explanation holds to why so many NFL analysts continuously miss the mark over the Rams rookie production from last season.
What did Manzano miss so blatantly in his assessment?
The Rams may not have the same elite level of NFL superstars in 2024 as the team did in 2021. But what this team misses in elite production, I believe the roster more than makes up for by creating a greater level of parity across the roster. That complicates the use of any top three players from the Rams’ defense.
As we witnessed in 2023, the Rams defensive front was bolstered by both NT Kobie Turner and OLB Byron Young. While Turner got the edge in quarterback sacks, the pair combined for an outstanding 17.0 quarterback sacks, a huge number for two NFL rookies. If the team has similar production from 2024 rookies DT Braden Fiske and OLB Jared Verse, this defensive front could be one of the most dominating pass rushes in the NFL.
But the production of the four stars could be so similar that no individual player will show much in terms of a top-trio ranking. That is how this mechanism is flawed in its design.
But even more apparent is the flawed assessment of a casual attempt to identify the team’s top three players, and missing the mark so horrifically. While DB Tre’Davious White may prove to be an outstanding addition to this defense if he can reclaim his pre-injury All-Pro form, that was certainly not factored into the way Manzano narrated White’s projection for 2024. The appearance of stating ‘if he can stay healthy,’ introduces a limited probability that he will do so.
While White is a wild card to the Rams’ secondary, veteran DB Darious WIlliams is the true ace in the hole for the team’s pass defense in 2024. Revising the 2024 projections to Kobie Turner, Ernest Jones, and Darious Williams compared to other NFL teams, the Rams certainly rise to stand firmly among the Top 15 defensive trios and flirt with being mentioned among the Top 10 in the NFL.
I like what the Rams have done in the offseason, and believe this defense is well positioned to surprise folks in 2024. Stay tuned.
And as always, thanks for reading.
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