Rams’ playoff hopes now depend upon Brandon Staley’s boundary-pushing defense

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When Brandon Staley first met Sean McVay, it didn’t take long for them to realize they were cut from the same cloth. Then the 37-year-old outside linebackers coach for the Broncos, Staley traveled to L.A. last offseason to interview for the Rams’ vacant defensive coordinator job. Early in the conversation with his potential new boss, Staley did his best to articulate the overarching philosophy and value system of the defense he wanted to run in Los Angeles.

“When he asked me, philosophically, as you’re getting into an interview, ‘OK, what’s important to you on defense,’ just from a schematic standpoint, my big belief system is 1-on-1s in the run game and 2-on-1s in the passing game,” Staley told me earlier this month. “It all starts there.”

That may seem like a simplistic way of thinking about the game, but Staley’s core belief in building a numbers advantage on defense whenever possible perfectly aligned with McVay’s own philosophy on offense. “(Football is) 11 on 11, but the best teams week in or week and week out — where it’s offensively or defensively — do a great job of changing up the math and the numbers,” McVay told me earlier this season.

As Staley outlined the specifics of his scheme and described the ways he planned to use Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey, and other personnel, it was clear to both men that they’d found a kindred football spirit. If McVay had been searching for his defensive counterpart, as The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue wrote earlier this season, he’d found it in Staley. “That kind of gets to the essence of why our relationship, from a football standpoint, has fit so well,” Staley says. “If we were coaching the other side of the ball, that’s what it would look like. There’s an ultimate respect. And there’s an ultimate collaboration because you’re able to help one another take your side of the ball to its highest potential. We really believe that, because of that creativity and collaboration, we’re able to see the game very similarly.”

For all the chemistry and sparks between the two, Staley was still relatively unknown to people outside the coaching world, and the 30-something, first-team coordinator was set to take over for a living legend in longtime defensive mastermind Wade Phillips. How the Rams defense would look — and play — remained a mystery. And even the most optimistic observers couldn’t have predicted this. Through 16 games, Staley’s defense ranks third in points against (19.3), second in weighted Football Outsiders DVOA, and first in Expected Points Added per play.

By any measure, the Rams have fielded one of the best defenses in the league this season, and they’ve done it by pushing boundaries and testing limits in ways we rarely see at the NFL level. Staley has held to his axiom about flipping the math and taken it further than any defensive coordinator in recent memory. In the process, he’s created a system that could help redefine modern defense in the NFL. With Jared Goff nursing a broken thumb and other offensive starters like Cam Akers, Cooper Kupp, and Darrell Henderson potentially sidelined for a must-win game with the Cardinals in Week 17, Staley’s surging defense now looks like the last, best hope for the struggling Rams to break into the postseason.

Before coming to the Rams, Staley spent the past three seasons as the outside linebackers coach on Vic Fangio’s staffs in Denver and Chicago. The reliance on two-high safety looks is an obvious Fangio influence on Staley’s defense (the Rams and Broncos use them at the highest rate in the league, by far), but the truth is Staley had been fascinated by Fangio long before he ever worked with him.

“I’d studied Vic since I first became a coordinator at Hutchinson Junior College, when he was at Stanford,” Staley said. “I felt like I’d been coaching for Vic since 2010. I joke with people about that, but I’m actually quite serious, because that’s how far back I went studying his stuff. And then I was able to be with him on an intimate level for three years, and then I could kind of pick up more context and learn all the ways that he had been shaping that defense.”

In early 2017, Fangio was then the coordinator in Chicago and looking for a new outside linebackers coach — his area of expertise — that he could train and groom. Staley had recently won a Division III Ohio Athletic conference championship as the defensive coordinator at John Carroll University and wasn’t an obvious choice for an NFL staff, but luckily, his friendships in the football world included a connection on the Bears’ staff. Chicago’s then-quarterbacks coach was Dave Ragone, who, like Staley, was originally from the Cleveland area. Ragone had played at St. Ignatius High School with Tom Arth, a close friend of Staley’s who was the head coach at John Carroll University.

“Dave thought I would be a good fit,” Staley said. “He knew that I had studied Vic. He knew that our defense at John Carroll, there were so many elements of Vic in those defenses. So I was fortunate that I got an opportunity to interview.” After Staley was hired, Fangio initially led the outside linebackers meetings before handing over the reins about halfway into the regular season. “He was a very impressive guy,” Fangio told me. “He’s got very good football knowledge, and he’s a football savant in that he loves the game, loves the historical aspect of the game, loves to research it and be up on all the new things.”

Working closely with Fangio gave Staley the chance to learn every minute detail of a defensive system that he’d long admired from afar. Picking Fangio’s brain about how he structured the defense year to year provided context about why certain aspects looked the way they did, and most importantly, helped Staley understand the importance of shaping a defense around your personnel from season to season. “We worked so closely together,” Staley said. “I was able to say, ‘Hey, going into this opportunity, this is the way I would do it.’ I think that’s something that’s been a hallmark of Vic’s success, is that he was able to evolve and be who he needs to be based on the players that he has. Going from San Francisco to Chicago to Denver, we were different teams. And certainly just when I was with him, our three defenses, we were different every year.”

At the time, Fangio’s defense was a different beast compared to the rest of the league. Pete Carroll’s success in Seattle had made systems with a single-high safety all the rage in the NFL. But as Staley surveyed the landscape, he had his doubts about the staying power of a system that limited the coverage menu a defense could play (namely Cover 3 and Cover 1). “So much of the NFL was trending to Seattle and that scheme,” Staley said. “I knew that it wouldn’t last. I knew Vic was so different, and there wasn’t really anybody like Vic. It’s because of the depth that we play with. And it’s not like Tampa Bay 2, which is way different because there’s too much air in the coverage. We just play with more depth. When you start with that premise, you can really open your thinking to play the way you need to play to stop people.”

The same year that Staley took the job in Chicago, the Rams hired McVay, whose offensive system filled with play action and deep crossing routes was specifically equipped to take advantage of the single-high, Seattle-based defenses that emerged around the league. Without playing a two-high structure, cutting crossing routes becomes a significant challenge, and the Rams (and offenses influenced by them) shaped their play-action systems around that central idea.

When Staley was the defensive coordinator at John Carroll in 2016, he implemented a two-high system heavily reliant on Fangio’s principles, but the motivation for that approach was different at the college level. “In college, with the RPO game, you have to play split safety to get the overlap with the QB running the ball,” Staley said. “You can’t play single-high with the QB as a runner and the running back as a lead blocker. When they have all 11 guys that they can use, and you only have 10 because one of those guys is in the middle of the field, you’re gonna get torn up. That’s why you see the defenses being played in college get exposed.”

A lot of the defensive structures that Staley used at John Carroll (above) look eerily similar to ones he’s used with the Rams this season, only now, the two-high structure is designed to slow down a different aspect of opposing offenses. “Transitioning to the pro game, you know that it’s more about the passing game,” Staley said. “Just taking that same process and applying those principles — with more variation, certainly — to the passing game in the NFL.”

The result has been a defensive approach that looks similar to Fangio’s, with the dial cranked to 11. According to Next Gen Stats, the Rams have lined up with a light box on 83 percent of plays, the highest rate in the NFL. Fangio’s Broncos are second at 78 percent, and no other team is above 72. By consistently lining up in two-high looks, Staley is able to create those 2-on-1 looks in the passing game that are central to his core defensive philosophy. And by playing a variety of coverages out of those looks (and not the static Quarters coverage that sometimes come with two-high alignments in college), the Rams have been able to eliminate some of the vulnerabilities that occasionally emerge with more static zone defenses.

“The more match (coverage) you are, the more the coverage truly splits,” Staley said. ”When you study a lot of people who play quarters, the coverage really splits and you have these independent worlds happening. To me, that’s the easiest way for offense to create matchups. You don’t want that. We want as much overlap in your defense as possible. That’s something that’s a staple of ours.”

Some of the benefits of lining up with two-deep safeties are self-evident. With more bodies deep in the defensive backfield, the Rams are able to insulate themselves from explosive plays in the passing game. According to Next Gen Stats, Rams opponents are just 10-for-44 with five interceptions on deep passes this season (22.7 percent completions, which is the second lowest mark in the entire league). Staley’s unit has allowed just four touchdown passes of 10+ air yards (four less than any other defense) and a passer rating of just 29.2 on deep throws (first in the league). The way that Staley allocates his resources makes it difficult for any defense to push the ball down the field, but playing out of two-high looks also gives the Rams an element of unpredictability that gets lost with single-high defenses.

Even when the Rams are lined up with two high safeties, they often spin to Cover 3 or other single-high looks, making it difficult for quarterbacks to extract much information before the ball is snapped. Take this game-sealing interception from the Rams’ win over the Bucs earlier this year. The Rams are initially lined up in a look that might lead Tom Brady to believe he’d get some sort of two-high coverage. But at the snap, safety John Johnson III spins into the box and rookie Jordan Fuller rotates to the deep middle of the field. Based on his initial read on the alignment, Brady tries to fit a ball to Chris Godwin up the seam — and throws it right to Fuller to end the game. “What it forces the quarterback to do is operate post-snap,” Staley said. “He has to work once the ball hits hands. Being in the shotgun, one thing you do lose is time, because you have to look at the snap. When you’re receiving the ball, if something happens after the ball is truly snapped, we feel like that’s an advantage.”

A reasonable follow-up question at this point is, “Why wouldn’t other defenses try this?” And the answer is fairly simple. Even in today’s pass-happy NFL, most defensive coaches think about their defensive fronts first and coverages second. Playing in single-high looks and a heavy box is the only way to ensure that every gap in the running game is immediately accounted for, and most defensive coordinators will tell you that stopping the run is their first priority. Staley has flipped that thinking, and his defense has benefitted from it.

When I asked Staley why he thought he could get away with playing this style of defense in the NFL, his answer was somehow obvious yet shocking, considering the typical discourse around defense. “I know that the quickest way to lose is to give up explosions in the passing game,” Staley said. “It takes a lot of 4- and 5-yard runs to add up to a 50-yard pass. If you truly believe that explosions are how you lose in the NFL, you really need to start there in your philosophical structure and how you construct your defense.” On its face, that point makes a lot of sense, but for anyone who’s listened to mainstay NFL coordinators talk about defense, it’s still jarring.

The reason that teams have avoided light boxes and single-high structures in the past is that it makes them vulnerable to gashes on the ground, and that’s forced the Rams to get creative with the way they line up and play against the run. At the college level (and for Staley’s defenses at John Carroll), there’s been a large-scale movement to what are known as “tite fronts.” With tite fronts, there are no open B gaps like there typically are with traditional four-man fronts. Defenses line up with three linemen stuffed into the interior, with a head-up nose tackle and two other linemen lined up on the inside shoulder of the tackles.

The approach has been all the rage in college in part because it acts as a deterrent to RPOs, but the Rams have also used them to steal back gaps in the traditional run game. Through alignment and coaching points, Staley and his staff teach their defensive linemen to play a gap and a half in the running game, which allows them to split the difference between a typical two-gap system and a penetrating one-gap defense. “We feel like we can gain overlap in the run game because of our front mechanics,” Staley says. “By doing that, it’ll be really messy in the run game. You don’t want to create a system where runs hit you directly. You want those runs to have to slow down, and what that does is that it allows the second and third level to get there. So it really starts up front with the way we teach our d line and our edge players.”

This 4-yard gain from the Rams’ Week 16 loss to Seattle is a useful example of what Staley is talking about here. Nose tackle Sebastian Joseph-Day and de-facto defensive end Michael Brockers manage to each play more than one gap as they clog up running lanes and provide time for safety John Johnson and others to flow toward the ball. Considering how they distribute their players on defense, the Rams’ success with this strategy against the run is probably the most impressive aspect of their defense in 2020. Despite lining up in light boxes more often than any other team in the NFL, the Rams rank first in rushing EPA/play allowed and third in run-defense DVOA. According to Next Gen Stats, just 26.7 percent of rushing plays against the Rams have been above expectation — the third lowest rate in the league.

When trying to flip the math in your favor and asking your players to play multiple gaps at once, it helps to have guys like Aaron Donald — who’s always the equivalent of one and a half players on defense. During his first conversation with McVay, Staley wanted to communicate the different ways he planned to use Donald and Jalen Ramsey, specifically, as the focal points on his defense.

“Coaches say that, but as you know, they don’t mean it,” Staley said. “They have a system, and they don’t really practice what they preach. I just knew that coming here to L.A., I had a vision for how we were going to use Aaron, Jalen, John Johnson. I really felt like we could mold something unique. Fortunately, Sean believed in me.”

With Donald up front, the Rams have a true queen on the chessboard that can unlock their entire plan. By sending five-man pressures in defined passing situations, the Rams can scheme one-on-one matchups for the best player in football. In other moments, Staley has been able to use the threat of Donald to create openings for other players, like this sack by Joseph-Day on Sunday against the Seahawks. “It’s like, “How are we going to have to defend the run game that particular week, and can we put him in a spot that gives him a chance to be successful?” Staley said. “Create as many different looks to isolate him against a particular player. That’s been a lot of fun to construct.”

Donald may be the best defensive player in football, but Staley says that when he’s creating specific plans on defense, he often starts with Ramsey and works backward. Ramsey plays the “Star” position within the Rams defense, which means that along with playing outside cornerback, he also moves inside to the slot when the situation dictates. “It’s just getting him where the action is,” Staley said. “Where he can impact the game, whether it’s pushing the coverage away from him, or whether it’s getting him closer to the action and make more plays from the slot, impact the game that way by being literally closer to the action. We feel like that’s where we start normally.”

Against teams with a true no. 1 receiver, Ramsey has consistently shadowed that player and been left locked man-to-man on the back side of what are otherwise zone coverages. That’s a typical strategy against 3×1 alignments, but Staley can breathe much easier knowing that Ramsey is the one locked up one-on-one against guys like D.K. Metcalf. Take a look at this incompletion from the first time the Rams played Seattle earlier this year. With Ramsey locked up with Metcalf, the Rams are able to create significant overlap on the back end of their defense and easily thwart a long throw to Tyler Lockett.

Along with flipping the math and pushing limits schematically, the Rams have also done it with the way they allocate their finances defensively. With Donald ($22.5 million) and Ramsey ($20 million), the Rams have two of the eight highest-paid defenders in football by AAV. Their defensive depth chart has become a fascinating study in positional value and how a team thinks about spreading out its resources on defense. By using Ramsey and Donald to create numbers advantages, the Rams feel comfortable skimping on some positions (namely, inside linebacker and edge rusher) in ways other teams might not.

Ramsey and Donald justifiably get most of the attention within Staley’s defense, but the other position that plays a unique role within this scheme is safety. Johnson (who’s hitting free agency this spring) and Fuller might not be household names quite yet, but they’re both brilliant, instinctive players that perfectly fit what the Rams do defensively. By playing so many light boxes (and often taking the nickel cornerback out of the run fit to create even more overlaps in coverage), Staley asks his safeties to pick up a ton of slack in the running game. But the most important demand he puts on that position is the mental work in the passing game. Traditionally, defensive coaches tell their safeties to play one of two ways, depending on the type of coverage. In man or pattern match defenses, DBs are taught to read the distribution of routes and react accordingly. In typical zone coverage, safeties are instructed to read the quarterback’s eyes. Staley asks his safeties to do both. “I think we ask them to see a lot more than most NFL defenses,” Staley said. “I think they’re responsible for seeing more. There’s a coaching saying that says, ‘If you see a little, you’ll see a lot. And if you see a lot, you’ll see a little.’ It’s basically saying, ‘Don’t try to look at everything because then you’ll see nothing.’ Well, I don’t believe that. At all. Especially at safety. The more you see, the more chances you have to affect the game back there.”

Take this pass breakup by Johnson against the Bucs earlier this season. After initially lining up in a two-high shell, the Rams quickly spin to a single-high look with Johnson in the middle of the field. As other guys on the Rams defense key on the route distribution to match coverage, Johnson is fixed on where Brady is looking to go with the ball. The QB’s eyes take him to Rob Gronkowski, and he’s able to easily knock away the pass for an incompletion. “We feel by picking up the QB, especially, you have a chance to make more plays,” Staley says. “Because he’s going to tell you where you need to go. Yeah, we match patterns and we’re aware of the routes and how they distribute. But we’re also aware of where the QB is, and that’s how you truly change the math. You get more overlap.”

Those overlaps, and the subtle ways that Staley and the Rams have been able to flip the numbers in their favor, have made this unit arguably the most effective, cutting-edge defense in the entire league this season. And against the Cardinals on Saturday, with a playoff berth on the line, Staley’s defense — not even through his first season with the franchise — may have to carry the Rams to the postseason.