Rams' Linebacker Nate Landman Sets Franchise Record in Combined Tackles. Or Did He?

 by John Turney 

This past week, the Los Angeles Rams public relations team released a meme on X that denoted Rams' linebacker Nate Landman set a franchise record for tackles in a single game with 17. The previous Sunday, versus the Baltimore Ravens, Landman recorded 8 solo tackles and was credited with 9 assisted tackles for a total of 17 tackles.

The meme:

Is the meme accurate, though? Well, it is the most total tackles by a Rams player ... since 1999. And that is the part of the meme that is omitted. It reads, at least to us, that it coveres the entirty of the existence of the Rams franchise. That's the rub. It does not.

However, it is understandable, Pro Football Reference (PFR) only goes back to 1999 in some statistics and one of them is tackles and PFR is the source many NFL public relations departments use, rather than old gamebooks. 

When you search for what Rams player made the most combined tackles in PFR (Stathead is their search engine), you get this list:

In the above table, you see Landman's 17 tackles on the top and right after that you can observe middle linebacker James Laurinaitis's game which he recorded 16 solo tackles but did not record any assists for a total of 16 combined tackles. That's a lot of lead (solo) tackles. 

But that list only includes games going back 26 years.

However, another linebacker -- Jim Collins -- recorded 20 tackles in a Week 7 game in 1984 versus the Saints. He was credited by the Saints' pressbox scorer with 14 tackles and 6 assists. It was notable enough that Pro Football Weekly named Colling its NFL Defensive Player of the Week.

Here is the tackle chart from that game:

Of course, perhaps someone made more tackles in a game sometime in Rams' history, we don't have film or a gamebook for -- maybe Riley Matheson made 21 tackles for the Cleveland Rams at some point so perhaps Collins' 20 tackles in 1984 is not the true mark.

All we know now is that he had more than Nate Landman, according to official NFL gamebooks. And that is worth remembering.