LA RAM’S HISTORIC PLAYER RETIRES, OPTIMISM REMAINS

                    In case you haven’t yet heard, the Los Angeles Rams All-Time great, Aaron Donald has hung up his cleats for good after last season.  The Rams are of course forever grateful for all that Donald has done for that team and City.  Well for both Los Angeles and St. Louis as he was drafted way back in 2014, 2 seasons prior to the Rams move back to the Los Angeles area for their second stint to host the Rams.  After 10 seasons as a Ram, Mr. Donald retires as the best defensive player in both St. Louis and LA teams respective team histories.  Aaron’s body of work obviously speaks for itself after playing 10 years.  A total of 154 games played with these incredible numbers; 340 solo tackles, 543 combined total, 111.0 sacks, 22 FF, 7 of which he recovered.  He was also selected to 9 Pro Bowls out of 10 years.  That is crazy along with the fact that this unstoppable force made his presence known to every single player in the league by being a 3x Defensive Player of the Year on top of winning Defensive Rookie of the Year!  And the cherry on top was when Donald got to the pinnacle of the sport by helping his team win the Super Bowl over the offensive juggernauts in the Cincinnati Bengals during Super Bowl LVI.

                        It is certainly a new era in LA now; one without an identity on the defensive side of the ball without that physical presence that Donald always brought.  It’s also worth noting the fact that the Rams also lost their DC of the previous 3 seasons, Raheem Morris to Atlanta as the Falcons’ new HC.  It will certainly sting for a little bit before the numbness kicks in.  Morris coached the best version of the Rams defense while winning the Super Bowl back in 2022 with a very talented unit including Jalen Ramsey, Von Miller, Eric Weddle, Sebastian Joseph-Day, Leonard Floyd, Darious Williams, and their greatest player off All-Time, Aaron Donald.  Even though the Rams didn’t exactly have a top 5 Defense last season ranking 20^th in yards allowed per game (337.9 YPG) and 19^th in points allowed (22.2 PPG) what Morris got out of his youthful defense is still very impressive in the scheme of things. When you have one of the youngest units in the league with basically only Aaron Donald and still somehow making a playoff run after going 10-7 on the year.  There is one plus that I see in their new DC Chris Shula, who coached both the Rams linebackers & served as their pass rush coordinator in 2023 so there should figure to be a lot of similarities in terms of what is to be expected from his players.

       On the other side of the ball the Rams Offense was very good thanks to OC Mike LaFleur, HC Sean McVay, and one of the best NFL QBs in Matthew Stafford.  The Rams offense accounted for a total of 6,108 yards last season, that’s the 6^th best in the league.  They had 44 Total TDs (T-7^th), 404 total points (8^th), 23.8 PPG (8^th), 4,300 pass YDS (9^th) 252.9 pass YPG (9^th), 10^th in rush YPG and 7^th in rushing TDs.  The run game was much better than many expected it to be because of fan favorite RB Cam Akers suffering yet another injury and left people to believe another down year for the ground game.  On the contrary, the emergence of 23yr old RB Kyren Williams showed up and showed out with over 1,000 yds on the ground, 12 rush TDs, and 5.0 YPC.  He also factored into the pass game and accounted for totals of 1,379 YDs, 15 total TDs, only having 3 fumbles, of which 2 were turnovers.  I’d say that are numbers for a top 8 RB in this league and I expect those numbers to ascend this year and beyond with the fact that Kyren did all of that and only played 12 games.

      Now let’s discuss this Rams passing attack.  This offense has some serious fire power in the WR room.  Their plethora of weapons Stafford has is arguably one of the best tandems in all of football.  Cooper Kupp is the obvious name for this positional group.  Cooper did have his season cut short with an injury thus only playing in 12 games last year; but with the emergence of one of the best rookie WRs in recent memory, Puka Nucua, who had the 4^th most REC YDs last season (1,486 YDs), he was also 7^th in receptions (105 REC) and 6^th in YDs/g (87.4 YPG).  Rams also have a dependable WR in Demarcus Robinson and another young stud in Tutu Atwell who helped the Rams in their wildcard postseason game last year scoring a TD on his only catch that went for 38YDs and although they ultimately came up short to the Lions in Detroit, they are looking towards the future and have a lot to be sanguine about.