One of the questions that the Los Angeles Rams will have to answer this season is how they plan to operate in a post-Aaron Donald world. As it’s been stated numerous times, there’s no replacing Donald. The impact that he brought as a single player can’t be replicated. Donald was one of the most double-teamed players in the NFL at defensive tackle and consistently created opportunities for other players on the defensive line and at edge.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25472448/usa_today_23346341.jpg)
The “Aaron Donald effect” was real. Leonard Floyd went from seven sacks in 2018 and 2019 combined to 10.5 sacks in 2020 alone after joining the Rams and Donald in free agency. Dante Fowler Jr. had 10 sacks in 2017 and 2018 with the Jacksonville Jaguars. In his first fill year with the Rams in 2019, Fowler 11.5 sacks. Fowler had 7.5 sacks combined in two years with the Atlanta Falcons after joining them in free agency. It was almost an inside joke for edge players who joined the Rams. Come to Los Angeles and play next to Aaron Donald to get a big pay day.
This is a problem that the Rams and new defensive coordinator Chris Shula will have to navigate through this offseason. It’s no secret that Donald made everybody’s job a little bit easier on the defensive line. For as good as Kobie Turner was as a rookie, it’s also an unfair expectation for him to have that level of impact. As seen above, Turner dealt with his share of double teams last season and was double teamed at a higher rate than Donald. Four of his sacks were considered ‘high quality’ by Trench Warfare which was just two fewer such sacks than Donald.
With that said, he now becomes to focal point on the defensive line which also means more responsibility and attention from offenses. That’s not to say that he can’t handle it, but it’s also not something that the Rams have had to think about with Donald.
Byron Young had a good rookie season as well. However, according to Brandon Thorn of the Trench Warfare substack, 30 of Young’s 41 pressures were considered “low quality pressures.” A low quality pressure is defined as, “a pressure coming as a result of the QB running into the rusher’s direction due to scheme (bootleg, roll-out), pressure from another rusher or being unblocked due to scheme (stunt, twist) or a missed assignment.” Young earned those pressures, but it’s also important to add context to those as well.
In 2013, the year before Donald was drafted by the Rams, even with all of the talent of that defensive front, it was a defense that ranked 11th in EPA. That jumped up to seventh in 2014 with Donald. In the 10 years with Donald, the Rams defense ranked outside the top-15 in defense EPA twice. Those seasons were 2016 and 2023. Even in the year that Donald missed time in 2022, with 99 on the field, the Rams ranked 15th. In the games without him, that dropped to 23rd.
As you can see in the above clip, the Rams are lined up in a BOSS (Bigs on Same Side) front. This leaves Aaron Donald one-on-one on the outside, but the guard shifts that way to help and the running back has his attention there as well. This leaves Kobie Turner with just the center to beat and a huge hole on the inside.
It’s going to be up to Shula and the defensive coaching staff to come up with pass rush plans that utilize each player to their strengths. Shula spoke about this on Wednesday to the media and said,
“I think it’s all about the players. Right now we’re just trying to get the foundation of our stuff installed and finding out what these guys do well and finding out what we can execute...It’s always going to be a committee approach. I think that it’s always going to be a little different coming up with plans not having Aaron Donald out there, right? But it’s always going to be a committee approach in emphasizing those guys strengths and having those guys rush as a unit and rush together.”
There is excitement heading into the 2024 for this defensive group and that is for good reason. For the first time in awhile, there is a lot of young talent on the Rams defense. Throughout the “F Them Picks” approach, the Rams brought in veteran players with experience. That mantra has been adjusted to focus on youth as the team heads into this next era.
Turner and Young will look to build off of strong rookie seasons. Jared Verse joins the group as a first round pick. It’s the first time since Donald that the Rams selected a defensive player in the first round. Notably like Donald, Verse unexpectedly fell to the Rams at 19. Braden Fiske also joins his teammate from Florida State on the defensive front.
Turner and Fiske should be able to complement each other well. Both players bring quickness off of the line of scrimmage which is something that Donald brought regularly. In 2018, Ben Roethlisberger led quarterbacks in average time to throw at 2.46 seconds. Last season, that was Tua Tagovailoa at 2.32 seconds. Having a player that can cause immediate disruption is more important than ever before as quarterbacks are getting rod of the ball quicker than ever before.
Still, with youth comes inexperience and with inexperience comes mistakes. That can be said at the coordinator spot where Shula enters his first seasons and from the player perspective.
This isn’t to have a negative outlook or to say that the Rams defense will never be better than it was with Aaron Donald as part of the unit. It’s not even implying that they’ll finish this season as a bottom-10 unit. They had good defenses before Aaron Donald and chances are that they will have good defenses after him. The Rams signed Darious Williams and Tre White in free agency while also bringing in Kam Curl. Those players should be considered upgrades in the secondary.
Still, everything on defense works in a tandem with one another. The pass rush and coverage units work hand-in-hand. Replacing the ‘Aaron Donald void’ may simply take time and certainly longer than one offseason’s worth of moves. With the offloading of Leonard Floyd and Jalen Ramsey after 2022 and now Donald this past offseason, this is a defense that has lost a lot of talent over the past two years. Figuring out how to replace those holes will be a process.
The Rams defense could hit the ground running and finish as a top-15 unit. However, it seems more likely that they take time to hit their stride and finish the season better than they start it. For the first time in over a decade, the Rams will be without one of the best defensive players of all time on their side of the field. It will be up to the coaching staff and players on how they navigate and handle that transition.
