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In rookie Jared Verse, the Rams have the makings of their next superstar
Jourdan Rodrigue
LOS ANGELES — It’s hard to miss Jared Verse.
At the snap of the ball, the Los Angeles Rams rookie outside linebacker — all 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds of him — screams off the line of scrimmage and toward the quarterback. His speed-to-power pass rush crashes into offensive linemen at absurd impact and with abnormal force, which helps explain how Verse doubled the NFL average in pressure rate in most of his games this season. After each play, his voice is a ceaseless foghorn as he smack-talks and laughs in opponents’ faces.
“You can feel him from the sidelines,” says Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula.
Verse, the Rams’ No. 19 pick last April, was the lone player from the team voted to the Pro Bowl this season. His 77 regular-season pressures ranked No. 4 among all defensive linemen or linebackers, according to TruMedia, and his average 17.1 percent pressure rate was well above the league’s average of 11.4 percent for players at those positions with 450 or more snaps.
Verse ended the regular season as oddsmakers’ favorite to win Defensive Rookie of the Year. Playing for a team eagerly awaiting its next household name on defense — after the 2022 trade of cornerback Jalen Ramsey and the retirement of defensive tackle Aaron Donald last spring — Verse is a game-wrecker in waiting, on the cusp of superstardom in Los Angeles.
But if Verse knows anything about his first season in the league, it’s that many lessons precede greatness.
Verse’s dad, Eric, was a marine. Now he’s an engineer. His mom, Jannienne, worked in marketing. As Jared grew up, he watched his parents work full-time to provide for him and his five siblings (two brothers, three sisters). Their parenting took communication, teamwork and care.
Eric worked nights, sleeping while Jannienne worked during the day and waking up in time to get the kids fed after school. When Eric headed off to work, Jannienne took over until the following morning. “My dad and mom would probably go weeks without seeing each other,” Verse said. “You live around that all day — seeing how hard your family works — you’re like, ‘I have to be better.’ ”
Navigating the world as one kid among six is a crash course in sociology, and perhaps that is why Verse initially gravitated toward the subject in college: He found he was good at studying people and their environments.
Now, Verse’s powers of observation and analysis are double-sided skills. In part, he uses them to get inside opponents’ heads.
“I’m always interested in how people react,” he said, “Just talking football, you can tell, Oh, this person’s gonna get mad. Once he’s mad, I’ve got him. Or another guy, he’ll talk back to me and I’m like, Once he goes quiet it’s over with.”
In 2022, after winning All-Colonial Athletic Association honors at the University at Albany, Verse transferred to Florida State, where he became close friends with teammate Braden Fiske, another smaller-school defensive tackle transfer from Western Michigan.
Last spring — after parting with Donald, a future Hall of Famer and perhaps the best player ever at his position — the Rams paired Verse and Fiske together as their first- and second-round picks in the draft, hoping to fast-track the defensive line’s rebuild by installing two young, dynamic players who were already used to playing at a high level together.
Verse showed up to Los Angeles Rams OTAs in May ready to compete, and his teammates heard all about it. His voice is always a volume level above everyone else’s, and he speaks fast. Contact was not permitted in those practices. Still, snap in and snap out, Verse smack-talked anybody in the area.
“He was pretty chatty,” veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford said, smiling. “He loves to compete, he’s an aggressive dude.”
“When he first got here, he would bark at everybody,” added outside linebacker Byron Young, who starts opposite Verse.
Rams coach Sean McVay saw an opportunity for the young player to grow. He pulled Verse aside. “You don’t have enemies on your own sideline,” McVay told him, challenging him to use his voice in a way that pushed his teammates in a positive direction.
“He has an edge to him that is so healthy — I think it’s one of the special things that makes him who he is,” McVay said. “I think he knows I cared enough about him to be able to give him that honest feedback. What’s great about him is he applies it immediately.”
Verse said he uses all of the talk to get into a flow state, a calm headspace where everything about his game is clear. He switched his tone in practice — he was still plenty loud, but in a way that lifted others.
“He is the energy,” said Young. “When I hear his voice, I’m like ‘Oh, we’re starting to go.’ … He really motivates me to be better because I know he’s ready, he’s got my back.”
It showed the other side of Verse’s knack for observing and understanding people. He cares hard about how he makes his teammates feel, and took it personally when McVay pointed out the early negativity.
“He’s a really good dude,” Fiske said. “I know he’s a loud guy. He’s a loud talker. He’s constantly getting after people, yelling. But deep down he cares about people.
“He treats people with respect, he’s gonna shake your hand and look you in the eye and talk to you. He understands what it means to be a good human — and there’s not many guys who can get on the field and flip that switch, but he’s one of those guys.”
Fiske had two sacks in an overtime win over Seattle in Week 9. In the locker room after the game, the soft-spoken rookie naturally gravitated toward the back of the room and away from any extra attention as McVay stood in the center giving a speech and handing out game balls.
Suddenly, Verse reached into the cluster of players and grabbed Fiske’s shoulder, pulling him into the spotlight and calling for McVay to get his teammate a ball. A video of the moment — McVay laughing in response and reassuring Verse that yes, Fiske was getting a game ball — circulated on social media.
“I remember that (and) I’m sure coaches remember that — but for people to watch that video and see he really cares about his teammates, that’s cool to see,” Fiske said. “That means a lot.”
“I love being a great player, I love being able to go out there and showcase my skills,” Verse said, “But when it comes to my teammates, I want them to realize that football is a small aspect of who everyone is. … I want you to realize that I care a lot about you besides the football aspect.”
McVay has coached defensive superstars before. Donald was a household name by the time McVay took over as head coach in 2017. When L.A. traded for Ramsey in 2019, the cornerback already had a well-established reputation around the league. Verse’s energy reminds some around the Rams organization of a mixture of both players.
“He’s got some s— to him that I really like,” said McVay. “That’s been big for our defense. I think guys feed off that and it’s a good thing. You need some guys like that. Aaron had that to him, too. He just might not have talked as loud, but the way he would stare a hole through people, they knew. Jalen Ramsey was like that. Sometimes those best defensive players, they have some stuff to them that you’re like ‘Oh man, we need that.’ You need that edge, that energy, that swagger and Jared Verse definitely has that.”
But developing a player into greatness is an entirely different process than coaching someone who is already great. There is always a danger of getting caught up in the pressure and hype that comes along with success. A would-be superstar has to be tested. He has to fail, then respond.
A 37-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 12 was Verse’s biggest setback during his rookie year. All season long, he and the Rams’ young, energetic defensive line had steadily improved, and Verse entered the game with at least one sack in three of the last four games.
But All-Pro Eagles running back Saquon Barkley ran over and embarrassed the Rams defense. Barkley’s 302 scrimmage yards set a high mark in the NFL in 2024 as he ran for touchdowns of 70 and 72 yards.
Verse sprinted in pursuit of Barkley on the 70-yard run, reaching 21.88 miles per hour as he did. It was just the fourth time a player of 260 pounds or more had reached that speed since 2018, according to Next Gen Stats. It didn’t matter. The play broke the Rams, who previously had kept the game within a touchdown.
“That builds character,” said Rams VP of sports medicine and performance Reggie Scott, whose staff clocked the eye-popping speed as Verse’s highest of the season. “The right people going through the wrong situations come out better. He cares hard. When he has adversity … it’s gonna be tough for him. He’s gonna fall.
“But he’s such ‘the right dude’ (that) he’s gonna come out even better.”
Verse was despondent after the game and his self-talk was brutal. When he arrived at the Rams’ practice facilities in Woodland Hills, Calif., the next week, he asked his position coaches and teammates to be harder on him.
“Winning all the time sucks,” Verse said. “It’s cool and all, everyone wants to go undefeated. But you grow 10 times more through failure than you do winning, period.”
He wanted more accountability. If he missed a detail, they needed to point it out.
“(That is) hard to do, especially for someone like him playing at such a high level,” said receiver Cooper Kupp. “He’s had success in this league at an early point. … For someone like that to come in and say, ‘Hey, even though I have done this and this and this, I can be that much better and I am accountable (for) the mistakes that I have made, that’s a huge thing for a guy like Jared.”
“He wants to do good by us because he feels like he lets us down,” said Young. “If we lose a game, he always comes in and says he has to do better, he has to be better. I’m just sitting here like, ‘Bro, this is crazy. He’s a rookie.’ ”
The following week, Verse powered through Saints tight end Foster Moreau to hit quarterback Derek Carr on fourth down at the Rams’ 9-yard line, forcing Carr’s pass to tumble incomplete. The hit sealed L.A.’s 21-14 win in New Orleans and kicked off a five-game win streak.
“Anytime someone wants to put a tight end on him … it’s just abuse. It’s literally abuse,” offensive/defensive line analyst Brian Baldinger said when breaking down Verse’s tape the next day. “Nobody can block him. No tight end can block him. This is a chance to go win the game and Verse wins the game.”
Verse continued to rank among the top players in the NFL in pressure rate as December continued. If his sack numbers weren’t striking, his teammates’ were: Fiske added 2 1/2 through that stretch, defensive tackle Kobie Turner had 3 and Young added 1 1/2.
On some snaps, Verse’s quick pressures drew attention and freed up others. Other plays asked him to sacrifice for the group’s rush plan instead of trying to make his own plays and rack up his own statistics. Coaches noticed his improvement there.
“(He) has really grown a lot. He’s coachable,” McVay said. “I think he’s really starting to understand, like we’ve talked about before, where are my play ops? What’s the intent behind some of these calls or these movements? …
“I think he’s continuing to use all these experiences as he matures and grows. I’ve been really pleased with how he’s improved in terms of just the overall accountability and the understanding of where you can impact it, but every play might not be (your) play.”
In the wild-card round, the young defensive line again set the tone for the entire team’s 27-9 win over the Minnesota Vikings. They sacked quarterback Sam Darnold nine times, tying a postseason record.
Verse helped make the game-wrecking play after cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon strip-sacked Darnold, snatching up the football and running it 57 yards to the end zone, reaching a top speed of 19.88 miles per hour per Next Gen Stats and flipping in for the touchdown.
“I did know about that speed that he hit (previously against the Eagles), which means he was doggin’ it on the touchdown yesterday,” McVay said with a smile on Tuesday. “The guy plays so hard, and that’s what you like. That represents our defense as a whole.”
McVay had to fold a dig into his compliment, had to keep Verse a little humble and twist the knife just a bit as the rookie prepares for the matchup that was a defining point in his young career.
A trip to Philadelphia for another shot at the Eagles and for the divisional round is on the horizon, and the Rams’ head coach is helping to mold a star.
