Since Brandon Staley brought the Vic Fangio defense to the Los Angeles Rams in 2020, they’ve mostly kept the same 3-4 scheme for the last four years despite having two different defensive coordinators in that span. Chris Shula will now take over the defense from Raheem Morris and he doesn’t plan to reinvent the wheel.
Based on his comments this week, it sounds like he’s going to keep the same base scheme the Rams have deployed since 2020, using whatever system the players can execute “at a high level.”
“I think that’s a work in progress. There will definitely be elements to it. I think we’ll use a lot of the same structures. The same three-four structure and some of the same core beliefs, but it’s all about the players. We’re going to do whatever the players can execute at a high level where they can go out and play fast and play confident and whatever the offense gives us, we’ll be able to have answers to and they can go be the best versions of themselves.”
When it comes to what Shula’s defense is going to be about, it starts with effort, pursuit and tackling. He also wants his players to take the ball away to give the offense more opportunities to score, but he wants everyone pursuing the ball to ensure the ball carrier gets on the ground.
“To me, it’s a simple game,” he said. “It’s relentless pursuit of the ball, it’s getting off blocks, it’s tackling, and it’s taking the ball away and defense hasn’t changed over that over the course of time. That’s what this defense is going to be about. Now, we do want to keep an element where we want to have an identity, but we also want to have an element of unpredictability where we want to keep the offense guessing. But that’s all going to be within the realm of whatever our players can execute at the highest level and what they do best. It’s always going to be about the players and they are what is going to make this thing go.”