When Aaron Donald was on the field, the Los Angeles Rams knew there was a very good chance he’d be double-teamed by the opposing offense. They’ll no longer have that luxury moving forward after Donald retired from football this offseason, but the Rams have someone else who will help fill the void left by No. 99: Kobie Turner.
While he may not get doubled as much as Donald, Turner is going to command a lot of attention along the defensive front. To counter that, the Rams plan to move him around the line in order to keep the opponent guessing.
“He’s going to be a guy who’s on the field a ton,” Chris Shula told FOX Sports. “We love to have the flexibility to move those guys around, depending on the personnel group that’s in the game. We’re lucky, because he can play multiple spots pretty easily, whether it’s physically or mentally.
“We can keep people guessing where we can kind of move him around. And the nice thing about Kobie is he’s so selfless, he’s always going to do what’s best for the team. So it will be fun to use that chess piece accordingly.”
Turner played both nose tackle and 3-technique last season, but 435 of his 695 snaps were over the B-gap as a defensive tackle, with 198 snaps coming as a nose tackle over the A-gap. With Donald gone, it’s reasonable to think Turner will play more 3-tech, but that’s also a position rookie Braden Fiske plays.
Turner’s ability to line up anywhere up front will give Shula a lot of options in his first year as a defensive coordinator, but he’s aware of the challenges that come with Donald being gone – like trying to diagnose how teams will set their protections against L.A.
“Obviously, we’re going to have to step up as a group,” Shula said. “We made a big point to Kobie Turner that we don’t expect him to be an Aaron Donald, because he really is one of one. We knew when he was in the game how offenses were going to protect against us. Now, it’s a little bit more of a guessing game.”