Buried in the Los Angeles Rams\u2019 playoff win over the Carolina Panthers is one of the more positive developments for Sean McVay\u2019s team: they possibly solved their recent tackling issue.<\/p>\n
At risk of sounding like a broken record, I have spent the last month documenting the Rams\u2019 challenges in bringing ball carriers down:<\/p>\n
The trend came to a screeching halt last week in Carolina. It\u2019s a stark difference from their recent games:<\/p>\n
Between Weeks 14 and 18 they missed over 13 tackles per game on average. This was one of the best tackling teams in all the NFL for the first half of the season. While it\u2019s encouraging that they\u2019ve flipped the script in the postseason, what in the world changed?<\/p>\n
1 – Regression from Nate Landman<\/p>\n
Landman missed only two tackle attempts in his first seven games as a Ram. Since Week 9 against the New Orleans Saints\u2014an 11 game stretch\u2014he\u2019s missed 17 tackles and more than one per game.<\/p>\n
The veteran linebacker isn\u2019t responsible for the turnaround against the Panthers. He missed two tackles (40% of LA\u2019s misses) and has eight in his last four games.<\/p>\n
The Rams still need Landman to be more sure-handed and the sooner this starts the better.<\/p>\n
2 – Quentin Lake\u2019s return is huge<\/p>\n
We know Quentin Lake is an important player on the defense, especially given his role as a captain. The Rams understand this too and recently rewarded the slot\/safety with a contract extension, preventing him from hitting the open free agent market.<\/p>\n
Lake was absent from Weeks 11 through 18. Although the team\u2019s tackling problem didn\u2019t really hit full force until Week 14, it\u2019s probably not a coincidence that the results improved as soon as Lake returned to the lineup.<\/p>\n
3 – Playoffs are best on best<\/p>\n
Nothing can force turnarounds like the threat of being sent home from the postseason. Winning requires teams to bring their best performances, and it could be a matter of the Rams simply tightening their chin straps.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that this is an encouraging sign for the Rams defense moving forward. They must continue to right the trend or they could find themselves on the losing side of a playoff battle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buried in the Los Angeles Rams\u2019 playoff win over the Carolina Panthers is one of the more positive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[7,1014,58,83993,2444,2611,6,424],"class_list":{"0":"post-680766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-los-angeles","10":"tag-los-angeles-rams","11":"tag-los-angeles-rams-playoffs","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-losangelesrams","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-rams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115902481095145552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}