After watching two of their leaders from the past few seasons, Aaron Donald and Ernest Jones IV, leave Inglewood via retirement and a shocking later summer trade that still has fans in their feelings before the season, the Los Angeles Rams are a team looking for a new identity on the defensive side of the ball.
Fortunately, after making a concerted effort to acquire as much quality young talent as possible over the past two seasons, the Rams are a team with plenty of options to lead them into the future, including a pair of rookie-scale contract players who were just named captains heading into the 2024 NFL season in Quentin Lake and Kobie Turner.
Asked about the decision to give these two players the nod coming out of camp, defensive coordinator Chris Shula celebrated the duo for being strong talents who earned the respect of their teammates, who ultimately voted them into the stars.
“Those two guys are well-deserving. [They were] voted by the team as captains, and I think they'll take that role very seriously. I think they're ready for that role, and they've earned it with their play on the field, how they prepare themselves, who they are, and what they bring to the locker room. So, [I'm] really excited about those two,” Shula told reporters.
“The types of people those guys are. Quentin Lake, I think about his rookie year. I was actually coaching defensive backs that year, and we drafted him. He was injured. I don't know if he came back until… He didn't do OTAs. He didn't do training camp [and] didn't come back till about Week 10 that year, but he was involved in the whole defense, every meeting, staying there late at night, studying it [and] making sure he was ready when his opportunity got called. Kobie, since the day he got here, has been that consistent, hardworking guy. Obviously, he was kind of under [Aaron Donald] ‘AD's' wing, and now I think he's taken that role to kind of mentor the D-line. I think both those guys are kind of wise beyond their years.”
At just 25, Lake and Turner both have multiple seasons left on their rookie contracts before the Rams have to hand them big-money contracts at some point in the future. If the duo have been able to take on leadership roles this early in their careers, it's safe to say the future is incredibly bright at SoFi Stadium, especially considering the quality of players the team brought in this offseason.
Chris Shula is also impressed by Rams FSU rookies
Later in his press conference, Schula was asked about the Rams' rookie defensive linemen out of Florida State, Jared Verse and Braden Fiske, who Los Angeles paid a heavy price to reunite back in April.
Asked how the duo have looked over the summer and whether their pre-existing connection could lead to immediate playing time for the Rams this fall, Schula celebrated the former Seminoles, declaring that they should see the field early and often this fall.
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“You have to trust the process. I was talking to him about it. I was just talking to Fiske the other day. He's ready to stop watching from the sideline [and is] ready to get out there and actually play,” Schula recalled. “Trust the process that we've done here since, I want to say, 2018, when we haven't played our starters until that first game. That's what we use those joint practices for. We try to make it as realistic as possible when we go out to practice and get these guys ready to go. You'd like to think those guys up front. That's a little more realistic for them. As far as a lot of the tackles that they make aren't necessarily in space and stuff like that. They're still wearing pads, having to get off blocks and things so hopefully that's able to translate.
“He definitely has an edge to him. He's a tough guy. Him and Verse both bring that. You saw it from his tape. You see his personality when you watch his college tape. Before you meet him, you know exactly how he's going to be. He loves the game, is passionate about it, shows up every day, and plays really hard. We love him for that.”
While the void left by Donald will be borderline impossible to replace by any one player, the Rams decided to try to replicate his productivity in the aggregate, with the pre-existing chemistry between Verse and Fiske hopefully enough to get them going right out of the gate. Will it work? Only time will tell, but so far, the reviews have been pretty darn good through the summer, and that success will hopefully continue deep into the fall.
