The Los Angeles Rams more or less assembled the Avengers on defense this offseason in an attempt to fix one of the things that kept them out of the Super Bowl last year. Their first move was to acquire Trent McDuffie in a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs, bringing in the All-Pro cornerback to be their top defensive back.
Shortly thereafter, they signed his teammate, Jaylen Watson, to a three-year, $51 million deal in free agency. In June, they traded Jared Verse and draft picks to the Cleveland Browns for Myles Garrett, which prompted Aaron Donald to come out of his two-year retirement three months later.
Through eight games, the Rams have played 516 snaps on defense, and none of them have been with all four of those players on the field together.
Injuries robbed us of seeing the Rams defense’s full potential, which is the unfortunate reality of the NFL.
And now with Watson undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery, we’ll never get to see the defense at full strength. Watson, McDuffie and Garrett will all be back in 2027, but it’s hard to see Donald sticking around for another year. There are bound to be other departures on defense, too, with Kobie Turner and Byron Young’s contracts expiring in March.
Let’s run through all the injuries and absences that led to Watson, McDuffie, Garrett and Donald playing zero snaps together with the Rams.
- Week 1: Donald doesn't play while working his way back from retirement. Also, Garrett was not 100% because of a knee injury.
- Week 2: Garrett is out after undergoing knee surgery.
- Week 3: Watson dislocates his shoulder against the Broncos. Garrett remains out.
- Week 4: Watson is out with a shoulder injury and Donald is out with a back injury. Garrett remains out.
- Week 5: Garrett is still on injured reserve.
- Week 6: McDuffie is out with a groin injury. Garrett remains on IR.
- Week 7: McDuffie is out with a groin injury. Garrett remains on IR.
- Week 8: Watson re-injures shoulder and McDuffie injures back. Garrett remains on IR.
Half a season and not one snap of McDuffie, Watson, Garrett and Donald together. Brutal.
And this list doesn’t even take into account the season-ending injury Poona Ford suffered in 6 against the Cardinals, or the injury Kobie Turner suffered in that same game that landed him on IR for at least four weeks.
And on offense, the Rams lost Terrance Ferguson in Week 3 and Davante Adams in Week 6. Also, Puka Nacua missed Weeks 2 and 3, as well. So we’ve seen the offense at full strength for one terrible game in Australia in Week 1.
Nacua has been back since Week 4, Ferguson is on the verge of returning and Adams will be back at some point after the bye, but injuries have bitten the offense, too.
The offense will (hopefully) be back at full strength sometime down the stretch. It’s the defense that will never look the way the Rams planned for it to, and that’s wildly disappointing.
The worst part? The defense has been excellent despite all the injuries it has endured. The Rams have allowed the 12th-fewest points and the fifth-fewest yards this season, and that’s with the special teams and offense putting their backs against the wall on multiple occasions with turnovers and blunders in the kicking game.
There was all this talk in the offseason about the Rams being a superteam, but we never got to see it fully assembled. We only got bits and pieces of Les Snead and Sean McVay’s vision.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: We never got to see the Rams' star-studded defense at full strength
