The Los Angeles Rams hired one of the more seasoned coaching minds available when they landed Wade Phillips as defensive coordinator. Phillips has helmed one of the league's very best defenses in Denver the last few years, and has long been connected with elite defenses -- Dallas, Houston and Buffalo, among others.
Perhaps the biggest issue for Phillips with the Rams is that the team played a 4-3 under Jeff Fisher, while Phillips favors a 3-4 defensive scheme. Linemen will need to switch to outside linebacker in his system. It's fair to wonder if there will be some growing pains. Robert Quinn, for example, had double-digit sacks in three straight seasons from 2012-2014, before missing half of each of the last two seasons with injury. Now he'll move to outside linebacker -- hurting his fantasy value in IDP leagues, at a minimum.
While the Rams were a huge disappointment (in terms of sacks and takeaways) in 2016, they'd been very good for several years prior to that. In the 2012-2015 seasons, they were usually among the top 10 in sacks, takeaways and consequently fantasy performance (1 point for sacks, 2 for takeaways, 6 for touchdowns). They faltered badly last year, but there's some talent here -- and they'll now have to adjust to a new system.
Hard to knock Phillips' track record, of course, but it might take some time for personnel to adjust to his system.
Rams sacks, takeaways and fantasy rankings the last five seasons are shown below.
| RAMS DEFENSE, RANKINGS | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
| Sacks | 1st | 3rd | 13th | 11th | 24th |
| Take | 23rd | 10th | 14th | 9th | 23rd |
| FF Pts | 10th | 3rd | 5th | 9th | 29th |