The Los Angeles Rams have brought in a lot of outside talent over the last few years, both in trades and by signing them in free agency. They’ve also developed a handful of quality homegrown players, namely Cooper Kupp, John Johnson and Cory Littleton.
Unlike Kupp and Johnson, though, Littleton wasn’t drafted. He was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Washington in 2016, spending the first two years of his career as a core special teams player and reserve linebacker.
In 2018, he became a full-time starter and last season, he blossomed into one of the best linebackers in football. His breakout year couldn’t have come at a better time, either. Littleton will be a free agent in March and is likely to join the top-paid players at his position.
Pro Football Focus views him as one of the best players in the NFL, ranking 90th on the site’s top 101 list.
One of the best coverage linebackers in the game, Cory Littleton makes the PFF Top 101 for the first time after his second consecutive excellent year in coverage. This season, his play in other facets of the game were better, and so his overall grade jumped to a career-best mark of 78.9. Littleton had two interceptions and seven pass breakups on the year, and he tallied 45 defensive stops across both coverage and the run game. He now gets to enter free agency coming off the best season of his career, with a proven track record in the most valuable area of linebacker play.
Littleton was one of three players this season with at least 100 tackles, two interceptions and three sacks, finishing the year with 134 tackles, two picks and 3.5 sacks. As PFF noted, Littleton was once again great in coverage, but where he really improved was against the run.
He only missed five tackles, which was half as many as he missed in 2018. His missed tackle rate of 3.6% was the lowest of any defender with at least 100 tackles. That was a huge boost to the Rams defense and will only help his stock in free agency.
Littleton is finally going to get the contract he deserves, it just remains to be seen if the Rams will be willing to pay up.