LA Rams Secondary Off To Good Start

 By John Turney 

Rams base 3-4, which they don't use a lot. They
are usually in some form of nickel—40 or Penny (5-1)

Tuesday, we wrote about the Cleveland Browns great defensive start in terms of allowing the fewest yards by a team since 1971.

The Los Angeles Rams pass defense is not off to that good a start but it's pretty good. 

Like the Browns defense ( it is a big question if they can sustain the 200 or so yards a game they are allowed) the Rams start, we have to remember, is through just six games.

What is the key stat? It's passing touchdowns allowed.

Through six weeks they have allowed just four touchdown passes -- which is tied for the second-fewest by a Rams team being the three the 1999 Rams defense allowed

Here are the top 19 (15 teams are tied for 20th):

When eras are considered the 2023 total is impressive. Seven of the 19 occurred prior to 1952 and three were in the 1930s and three were in the 1940s so there's quite a range of flavors of Rams teams.

From the six-man lines to five. Then five to four. The four to three and then back and forth between the two. From what was generally man coverages and very little passing to the early zones and the complex coverages of Ray Malavasi, Bud Carson, Fritz Shurmur, George Dyer back to Bud Carson and others to Lovie Smith's Tampa-2 to the Jeff Fisher/Gregg Williams stint and Wade Phillips's 3-4 to the quarters coverages of the Staley/Morris years. 

Rams fans shouldn't get too excited though. Many of the defenses that got off to a good start weren't able to shut down opponents' passing games -- only a handful did. That could be the case this year. The 2023 Rams secondary are not exactly a group of Pro Bowlers. 

We'll see. 

Here are examples defenses from All-22 or -- close to it -- from most of the squads on the list beginning in 1945. There is no any film for the 1930s.Cleveland Rams.

From 1945—

And 1947—

A shot from a 1949 Rams game against Green Bay—

The left linebacker is walked out to what would now
be on the border of the hook and flat zones

1951—

Rams in 5-2 with one linebacker walked out
to left and the middle guard with hand in dirt.
Often he'd drop back at the snap. 

1968—

Rams in the George Allen 4-3

1971—

Tom Catlin called the defenses in 1972 and 1972 but they
were a remnant of the Allen era

1972—

1975—

1975 and 1977 (below) were the peak of Ray Malavasi's
defense. Here they are in an overshift which they used more
often than they did in the Allen/Catlin era. The so-called "odds".

1977—

1983—

Fritz Shumur's 3-4

1992—

A TV shot of George Dyer's 4-3 with the accommodation
for Kevin Greene to be a stand-up defensive end.

1993—

Though the 1993 defense was the same but this is a TV still of a 
dime defense (4-1-6) versus the Falcons' Red Gun offense (run and shoot)

1999—

Peter Giunta and John Bunting coached the scheme
that was passed on by Bud Carson

2012—

Blake Williams ran his father's (Jeff Fisher's) 4-3 scheme in 2012
but by 2012 the Rams were running just over fifty percent nickel defense.

2015—

Gregg Williams ran the scheme himself in 2015, the last defense on
the list and ran nickel a but more than the base 4-3 using both 40 and 30 nickel.

That's it, a general idea of the Rams' deense that kept toucdhown passes to a minimun in the first month-and-a-half of their seasons.