What is Rams biggest need after Aaron Donald retirement?

Replacing Aaron Donald is impossible for Rams, but there are more holes to plug than just defensive tackle

It would be easy to say that the biggest hole on the L.A. Rams roster is the one left by Aaron Donald following his retirement on Friday, and it is true to say that the team must now be taking a harder look at defensive linemen in the draft, but the fact is that the depth chart might have even bigger needs than that.

The Rams might be considering one of the few defensive tackles getting first round buzz this year, such as Byron Murphy out of Texas. However, what about the needs at edge rusher? Or linebacker? Or cornerback and safety? Or left tackle? That’s before mentioning the lack of a clear future at wide receiver when Cooper Kupp retires or running back if Kyren Williams gets hurt again.

The truth is that Donald’s retirement was a wake up call for a lot of us. Prior to Friday, the Rams were my favorites to win the NFC next season and reach the Super Bowl. Without Donald masking a lot of issues on L.A.’s defense it is now clear to me that in order for something like that to happen, not only will the Rams need to have an injury season blessed by the fountain of youth…they also need to address certain positions that are still tabbed to start players like Christian Rozeboom, Michael Hoecht, Quentin Lake, Russ Yeast, Cobie Durant/Derion Kendrick, Demarcus Robinson, and now a defensive line featuring Bobby Brown and Desjuan Johnson.

Nothing against any of those individuals, but as the collective starters on a team that has to beat the 49ers to win the division and has to beat the likes of Philadelphia, Dallas, Green Bay, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, and so on to make the Super Bowl, the Rams can’t possibly be finished building their 2024 roster and depth chart.

I know that the 2023 L.A. Rams were far better than I expected them to be. Well, until this weekend I expected the 2024 Rams to be one of the best teams in the NFL. How could they be much better than that?

With 11 draft picks, I know that Les Snead’s team has a plan to fill the remaining needs and that Sean McVay has a plan for how to consistently beat opponents as they have usually done under his leadership.

So what is the “BIGGEST” need? What is the hole on the Rams roster that could be their downfall?

These would be the areas I’d address, in order:

NEED 1 – EDGE 1/EDGE 2

I believe at every position or area of the field, the Rams have at least one good-to-great player except this one. And it’s arguably one of the four most-important positions in football: Setting the edge in run defense and attacking the quarterback from a wide position.

I have nothing negative to say about Byron Young, the third round pick out of Tennessee last year who had a fantastic eight sacks and 19 QB hits as a rookie. Young went into the draft with questions about how his age would impact his development (he turned 26 last week) and was available in the third round despite having one of the best physical and athletic profiles of any edge in the draft.

I would just say Young is more on that cusp of becoming a good player than definitively being in that group for the long haul.

“Of course he’s good! He’s in the NFL! Are you crazy?!?!”

I know that all players in the NFL are good, it’s absurd to think of the astronomical odds against high school and college football players ever making it this far. And Young had some of the longest odds of any of them a couple of years ago prior to erupting as a prospect late in his career.

What I am saying is that relative to the NFL edge rushers who are in the top-10, top-20, top-30 conversation, Byron Young has yet to make his case and then he has prove it. If Young builds on his rookie season, he’ll be a top-25 edge rusher and the Rams will have that player locked in for two more years on a rookie scale contract. That’s great.

However, I would bet that Young settles into more of an EDGE 2 than being any defense’s best edge rusher. Someone who can stop the run and consistently rush the passer.

What I find interesting about Young’s rookie season is that 13 of his 19 QB hits came in the first seven games of the season. In his last 10 games of 2023, Young had six QB hits and three of those came against the awful New York Giants and the worst OL in the league. Then a fourth came in Week 18 against the 49ers when starters were sitting.

Before those last two games, adding two sacks to his tally too, Young was mired in a pass rushing slump.

Then on top of that, fans have to ask themselves how much of L.A.’s run defense and pass rush was aided by the presence of Aaron Donald. How will that impact that likes of Young and Kobie Turner going into 2024? The Rams were an average run defense in 2023, do they have the makings of a defense that can get BETTER in run defense without Donald? Or will they go in the other direction? Because they were right in the middle.

It would be one thing if Young was situated opposite of Von Miller (five years ago) or even Leonard Floyd, but he’s not. He’s opposite of Michael Hoecht right now. Byron Young should not be the defense’s best edge rusher and that’s L.A.’s biggest problem now, not just the loss of Donald.

One veteran edge rusher who is out there is Haason Reddick, as Blaine Grisak wrote this weekend, but that would require a trade and a contract. The trade cost probably wouldn’t be too great because the Eagles are out of options and I don’t think teams are banging down the door for a 30-year-old making $16 million who is also unhappy with his contract.

But unless L.A. is super happy with what they saw in practices from Nick Hampton and Ochaun Mathis last year, then the edge position is in dire straits.

No forced turnovers

An ongoing theme here will be the worst category that the Rams performed in last season: The Rams were 30th in takeaways. They just lost Jordan Fuller, the player who led the defense in both interceptions (3) and forced fumbles (3). Only two interceptions from last season’s defense look primed to return, assuming Ahkello Witherspoon doesn’t re-sign: 1 by Rozeboom and 1 by Kendrick.

How do teams force more turnovers? Of course, a lot of turnovers are a product of luck, but you make your own luck by pressuring the quarterback. QB pressures lead to strip-sacks and bad throws.

The Rams just had eight sacks and 23 QB hits retire on Friday. Now they’re putting it on Young and Hoecht and Turner to generate more pressure in 2024 with AD? I doubt it.

At this point, I think every single mock draft for the Rams has to end in L.A. picking an edge rusher in the first round: Alabama’s Dallas Turner is the one guy who is consistently picked well before the Rams would be on the clock at 19, followed by Florida State’s Jared Verse and UCLA’s Laiatu Latu. Penn State’s Chop Robinson and Missouri’s Darius Robinson would be the next.

Yes, the Rams have other significant needs. Nothing compares though to an edge group where Byron Young is BY FAR your best player at the position, followed by Hoecht, Hampton, and Mathis. They need someone now who is far more of a creator and disruptor on his own, without needing help from an All-Time defensive lineman, because that’s not a player who exists on the depth chart anymore.

EDGE RUSHER – #1 NEED

NEED 2 – DEFENSIVE LINE

You could call him a defensive tackle or a big defensive end, but whoever fills this role in 2024 the Rams must continue to obtain upgrades on the defensive line.

I don’t know who people think Bobby Brown III is, they might have him confused with someone else, because he’s a borderline adequate starter and he’s a 2025 free agent. Brown played in 19 games and made one start in his first two seasons, then served a six-game suspension to start 2023. Brown made 13 starts and had 31 tackles, one QB hit, and 0.5 sacks playing next to Aaron Donald and Kobie Turner in 2023.

And he’s just one of two STARTERS next to Turner next season, the other being Mr. Irrelevant Desjuan Johnson. In 11 games and 102 total snaps, Johnson had nine tackles and two sacks as a rookie. The only other player signed to the roster besides Turner is Cory Durden, a 2023 UDFA.

In any other class, the Rams could justify picking a defensive tackle in the first round. In this class with Murphy as the only player who is getting consistent first round buzz, it might make more sense to bring in an edge rusher and then take a swing in round two or round three where the group is more plentiful and even if he’s going to have some red flags, at least you’re probably getting adequate value for the position and filling a need.

Someone like Braden Fiske, T’Vondre Sweat, or Kris Jenkins just to name a few.

L.A. could still take a free agent route as a band-aid and Sebastian Joseph-Day is out there on the market after being cut by the Chargers. He won’t cost much and he again won’t have to move out of L.A..

Getting big men for the defensive line to fill the gaps but athletic enough to rush the passer should be a priority for Snead and McVay moving forward.

DEFENSIVE TACKLE/END – #2 NEED

3 – LINEBACKER

This has rarely been a priority for the Rams, aside from signing Bobby Wagner two years ago, and that didn’t last very long. It’s just hard to believe that in addition to Hoecht and Brown setting up for another season as a starter, Christian Rozeboom is currently LB2 next to Ernest Jones.

The Rams might be trying to extend Jones as we speak, it doesn’t change the fact yet that he’s a free agent in 2025 and Rozeboom, who was fourth on the team in tackles last season, is the only clear option to be standing next to him. Again.

There are veteran, but flawed, free agents out there like Zach Cunningham, Shaq Leonard, and Kwon Alexander. I wonder if Snead will add a band-aid at linebacker and then address linebacker on day three.

Ernest Jones is a good player, he was certainly super productive in 2023 with 145 tackles, 14 TFL, and 4.5 sacks. Obviously what the Rams lack is a ridiculous, All-Pro type talent in the middle of the field that changes how offenses can attack you, and that can be 100% fine if your defense is setup a certain way: The Rams won the Super Bowl with Troy Reeder in the middle.

But without many superstar players on defense, if any, the presence of someone like Rozeboom as a starter is going to show itself in how opposing offensive coordinators beat up and attack the middle of the field. First, the Rams must address how to pressure the QB with EDGE and DL upgrades, but next it has to be a look at linebacker before we even get to cornerback and safety.

LB – #3 NEED

4 – WR2/WR3

Yeah, I could talk about corners and safeties now. But if the Rams were to actually get front-six and front-seven upgrades at the positions I mentioned, it would take even less pressure on the secondary to be elite, or even great. So let me take my first stab at the biggest need on offense after re-signing Kevin Dotson and signing Jonah Jackson to make the iOL arguably the biggest/best in the NFL.

What the hell are the Rams going to do if the oft-injured Cooper Kupp gets injured again? And even if he doesn’t, couldn’t the Rams use a better third option than Demarcus Robinson?

Nobody is mad at Robinson, but he’s your classic WR4. That’s what he is. Even last season, he played in 35% of the offensive snaps compared to 60% for Tutu Atwell.

And Tutu Atwell is not a good enough WR3. That makes him a bottom-tier WR2 if Kupp or Puka Nacua were to miss time. Heaven forbid I even have to mention what L.A.’s offense would look like if both Kupp and Nacua, an uber-physical player who entered the NFL with injury questions, were to miss a game.

Even though the Rams seem to have gotten extremely lucky to start the Puka era right as the Kupp era is winding down, they do not have a strong third WR and they might need a really great receiver as soon as 2025 if Kupp retires. Seeing Donald go out on Friday, how can fans not want to be prepared for that moment when it comes for Kupp?

Though the Titans did go above and beyond for Calvin Ridley, the WR2 market has not been quite what the WR2s probably hoped it would be. Tee Higgins remains likely to either holdout or be traded if the Bengals don’t give him a long-term extension. There hasn’t been much noise there. Stefon Diggs may not get the slack from the Bills that he got last year because he’s clearly trending down while his contract numbers go up. The Chargers released Mike Williams unsure of his recovery from a knee injury and the Cowboys released Michael Gallup.

Options exist and there are probably other receivers available too. The 49ers may trade Deebo Samuel or Brandon Aiyuk, but not to the Rams.

The Rams could go a veteran route or try to get lucky again as they did with Puka. I think in order to increase the odds of luck, L.A. might need to draft a WR as early as round two. They did it with Van Jefferson and Tutu Atwell, and though those didn’t turn out like they hoped it doesn’t mean you stop trying. If anything, Snead must have learned what kind of WR not to draft and to maybe try a different type of option in 2024.

I can’t quite tell who will fall out of the top-40 or so picks, but Ricky Pearsall, Roman Wilson, Xavier Legette, and Ja’Lynn Polk are a handful of potential options.

WR2/WR3 – #4 NEED

THE REST

5 – K

6 – CB

7 – RB2

8 – FS

9 – OT

The Rams don’t have a real kicker on the roster yet, but that seems to never bother Sean McVay. Will this be the year to pick one in say, the fourth round? If there’s even a prospect worthy of it.

I think the Rams can probably, and likely will try to, survive at cornerback with Durant, Kendrick, Tre Tomlinson, Lake, Shaun Jolly, and one or two more veteran additions. They aren’t going to panic, as they didn’t last year when they signed Witherspoon late in the process. Maybe they go for an injury-concern signing like Xavien Howard on the cheap.

Bringing in a running back to compete or replace Ronnie Rivers as RB2 is probably and it could be someone as interesting as JK Dobbins if he passes a physical after tearing his Achilles last year.

Free safety could be a competition with Tanner Ingle, Jason Taylor, and Russ Yeast. I think bringing in two more names to compete, a veteran and a rookie, is probable.

Then I could see another OT brought in, however for now it looks like A.J. Jackson is set for another year and thus far the team has not parted with Joe Noteboom. They also have Warren McClendon and A.J. Arcuri. The other thing the team could do is draft a quarterback if they really like a day three prospect and don’t think Stetson Bennett will ever return.