I’ve written often about the Los Angeles Rams’ tackling woes over the past year. What at first glanced seemed like a late-season blip now appears to be a more troubling multi-year trend for several of LA’s core defensive building blocks. Poor tackling may be a feature rather than a late-season bug.
Background content on the tackling topic:
Blip or Trend? Rams have a recent tackling issue (December)
A problem the Rams cannot seem to fix (December)
PFF grades in loss to Falcons: Missed tackles galore (December)
The most positive aspect of Rams’
wildcard win (January)
Bug or Feature?
The silver lining for 2025 is that the Rams were one of the best tackling teams in football from September into November. Their ability to bring down ball carriers took a turn for the worst in late November into December. The more troubling indicator is that the tackling issues were driven by mainstays on defense: Nate Landman, Jared Verse, Kobie Turner, and Braden Fiske.
For example, Nate Landman missed only seven tackles through Week 12 (11 games) and this includes a performance in Week 9 against the New Orleans Saints where he had three misses alone. From Week 13 through the NFC Championship (nine games) he missed 18 tackles. This turn in performance raises concern whether Landman will live up to the mid-season contract extension he was given last year. He must perform more like his early season form in 2026 or the extension could be a bust from the Rams’ perspective. This was an out-of-character investment in the linebacker position and has not aged well based on the early returns.
More concerning is the fact that Verse, Turner, and Fiske also struggled with tackling in 2024. These players were major elements of LA’s defensive turnaround after Aaron Donald’s retirement. They’ll need to be more reliable in bringing down ball carriers in order for the defense to make cash in on its Super Bowl expectations.
Rams 2024 PFF tackle grades and missed tackle rates:
- Braden Fiske: 29.2; 22.9%
- Kobie Turner: 29.7; 16.7%
- Jared Verse: 29.7; 25.6%
- Byron Young: 41.8; 18.9%
Rams 2025 PFF tackle grades and missed tackle rates:
- Emmanuel Forbes: 26.9; 26.1%
- Braden Fiske: 27.7; 27.5%
- Kobie Turner: 29.7; 22.8%
- Jared Verse: 29.7; 22.5%
- Poona Ford: 43.2; 13.1%
- Nate Landman: 54.0; 13.9%
Comparison to other defensive linemen:
Since the tackling issue appears concentrated along the defensive line, let’s compare to the top players at the position in order to better understand how the trio of Verse, Turner, and Fiske can grow in this area.
Tyler Davis—the Rams’ rotational lineman that plays behind Turner, Ford—was graded by Pro Football Focus (PFF) as the NFL’s fourth-best defensive lineman in tackling grade at 74.1 behind Micah Parsons (79.7), Myles Garrett (77.5), and Javon Hargrave (74.3). Davis missed only 3.7% of his tackle attempts.
Byron Young, who struggled with tackling in 2024 and then improved significantly last season, jumped to 12th at 68.9. Young had a miss rate of 8.0%.
On the other hand, Fiske ranked in the bottom 10 of all defensive interior players and EDGE rushers. Turner and Verse were the 20th and 21st worst, respectively.
There are significant opportunities for growth along the defensive line if Verse, Turner, and Fiske can become more sure-handed tacklers. This raises the bar of difficulty for opposing offenses and forces them to be patient and string together solid gains—rather than routine plays turning into explosives.
If this dynamic defensive trio can replicate Byron Young’s improvement in 2026—and with the offseason additions of Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson—the sky is the limit for the Los Angeles defense.
