rams defense before game 4

These tweets were posted a bit at a time in another thread but I thought they belonged all together, here in their own thread. These numbers illustrate how the pass defense is coping so far, which basically amounts to limiting explosive plays (and being good against the run–Rams rank 10th in rushing yards & 5th in rushing yards per attempt).

So anywhere here it is:

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Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
– defense has done a nice job locking down explosives and stats are gonna be situationally a bit weird this time of year with limited sample size.

Rams defense is No. 2 in NFL in limiting explosive pass and run plays through the first 3 weeks, per @TruMediaSports–– just 13 explosives allowed. NFL average is 20.8. Their 10 pass explosives allowed are tied for No. 2. Three run explosives T3rd. No. 1 in explosive play rate.

Rams have a pressure rate of 22.7%, which is second-lowest in the NFL through three games, but are blitzing at a 37.1% rate, which is fifth-highest. Their movement toward rushing 4 in second half of 2021 made a clear difference not just toward pressure effect, but also
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in how they could manipulate their coverages on the back end (including tighter alignments for some players while keeping the shell for others). On this today, DC Raheem Morris said, “You want to be able to affect the QB as much as you can, any way you can, but particularly if
you can do it with a four-man rush, that makes your day a lot easier. When I say, ‘stats are for losers’, it’s kind of a cliche thing. There are some stats that are definitely a part of winning, (and) you definitely want to use as a measuring point for your guys and what they

do, and definitely affecting the QB is one of those things. It’s part of our philosophy, part of who we want to be. The guys all want to do that, too. So, like, can we improve our four-man rush? There’s no question about it. But I think it all ties together. Can our coverage

get stickier and tighter, more aggressive? No question. Those are the things that all tie together.”

The continued acceleration of Terrell Lewis + potential emergence of Takk McKinley bears monitoring thru October, and ahead of the Nov. 1 deadline IMO. Small sample size so far.

Aaron Donald also mentioned a great point in that ball is coming out REAL fast so far in the year, so again, small sample size to this point but bears monitoring over this next month

Was curious about Donald’s comments so dug in a little, “time to throw” metric is an imperfect quantification but league avg is 2.59 seconds and vs Rams is 2.35 seconds per attempt – so that’s just further context for this thread as needed with most things.