Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment,
we focus on Los Angeles Rams safety Kamren Kinchens, who’s just the latest in a long line of Rams defensive backs who are playing their best ball under coaches Chris Shula and Aubrey Pleasant.
We have now entered the Aubrey Pleasant portion of our program.
The Los Angeles Rams’ Assistant Head Coach and Passing Game Coordinator, Pleasant is in his seventh season with the team, and especially lately, he’s done a marvelous job of developing every defensive back that comes into the team’s facility — whether it’s via the draft or other means. Last week, cornerback Emmanuel Forbes Jr., the former first-round washout with the Washington Commanders who was claimed off waivers last December, made Secret Superstars after a series of games in which he was as lockdown as anybody playing his position in the NFL. In the Rams’ 21-19 win over the Seattle Seahawks last Sunday, Forbes followed that up by shutting down Jaxson Smith-Njigba, the league’s most prolific receiver.
It seems like a different Rams defensive back makes the show every week, and in the Seahawks game, it was safety Kamren Kinchens, the second-year man from Miami who the Rams took in the third round of the 2024 draft. The 6’0, 205-pound Kinchens picked off two of Sam Darnold’s four interceptions, and he was a big part of the confusing coverage switches that had Darnold wondering just what the hell was going on out there.
It was the second time in Kinchens’ young career that he had two interceptions against the Seahawks in a game; he did the same in Week 9 of the 2024 season in a 26-20 win that included a 102-yard interception return by Guess Who.
“Man, they want to throw the ball,” Kinchens said with a laugh after Sunday’s performance. “Most people want to just dink and dunk and run the ball and kind of chip their way down the field. So people who want to kind of put it down the field or kind of give us a shot, that’s their mistake.”
Where does Kinchens get his knack for dual picks in the same game? From another Miami alum who may have been the greatest coverage safety… well, ever.
“Every time I do catch a pick, Ed Reed at Miami always told me, ‘If you catch one, it’s not illegal to catch another one,” he said after last year’s two-pick game against Seattle. “So I try to go out there and catch as many as I can. I want to catch eight, 10,'”
Kinchens’ first pick this time around came with 10:59 left in the first quarter on Seattle’s third offensive play. The Rams showed a two-deep shell pre-snap, and then, while safety Kamren Curl stayed deep, Kinchens came down to rob Darnold’s intermediate curl route to Kupp in what became Cover-1. Darnold, who was feeling pressure up the middle and had to throw from an uneven platform, never saw it.
Kinchens’ second pick came with 1:15 left in the third quarter on a Darnold seam route to tight end Elijah Arroyo. This time, the Rams showed two-high pre-snap and stayed there in Cover-6 — Cover-2 to Kinchens’ side. It looks like Darnold’s first read was to Smith-Njigba to the boundary, but this was one of many instances in which Forbes had Smith-Njigba tied up. It was easy enough for Kinchens to read it out from there.
“My eyes were on the ball the whole time,” Kinchens said of interception No. 2. “I kind of, in my periph(eral vision) just kind of saw him coming, so I just braced for the hit and went for the ball with my body.”
As for Darnold, he was still trying to figure it all out postgame.
“They do a good job of disguising shell and all those things,” he said of the defense that had just ripped him apart for the second time in less than a calendar year, albeit in very different ways each time. “I feel like a lot of defenses do the same thing. I feel like their pass rush, their linebackers, their safeties are all on the same page and playing really good football. They do it at a high level. They seem like really smart players. But again, those are self-inflicted wounds, turning the ball over like that. Sometimes it’s better just to try to throw the ball away, or even take a sack when nothing is there.”
Sean McVay was asked postgame about the growth of the secondary, and he knew who to credit right away.
“Well first of all, I can’t say enough about the leadership from Aubrey Pleasant. Obviously, [safeties coach] Chris Beake does a great job as well, but being able to pour into these guys, and then ultimately, the players are the ones that are delivering in big ways. I think Cobie Durant has been so solid, so steady. It’s been great being able to get [cornerback] Darious Williams back out there, and how fun it is to see the growth of Emmanuel Forbes Jr.? He’s competitive, tough, and I think he’s tackling well. Cobie’s playing complete football, and it was great to be able to get Darious out there. He made a couple key and critical plays. He’s always been a guy that just finds the football.
“I think in a lot of ways, really the back end as a whole…what a job by Kamren Kitchens. I thought Kam Curl had a great game. What a credit to [cornerback] Josh Wallace coming in. I mean, [safety] Quentin Lake is such a glue guy for our team, the amount of things that he does, and you have to give Josh Wallace his credit for coming in and doing an excellent job for us.”
Who will step up for this secondary next week against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Tune in on Sunday, but the one thing we know is that somebody will do so.
