Going into this season the Los Angeles Rams knew that their identity would be running the football and playing good defense, as with Case Keenum at quarterback and a below average receiving core it was not realistic to believe that the offense was going to be high powered.
The team has struggled to run the football though, which has put even more stress on the defense.
Despite a four-game losing streak, the Rams defense has played well enough to win as in their last two games in particular they gave up just 23 combined points.
One area that the defense has struggled though is creating turnovers, something the middle linebacker Alec Ogletree thinks they need to start doing to help out their offense, via Myles Simmons of therams.com:
“I feel like we’re operating pretty well right now, but we can definitely still improve,” middle linebacker Alec Ogletree said. “And I think our biggest thing right now is creating the turnovers — being able to help our offense out and give them more offensive possessions. If we can do that with defense, then I think that will help us be a much better defense.”
Ogletree feels that creating turnover should be a team effort:
“We have to swarm the ball and rip the ball out, get interceptions — all kinds of stuff,” Ogletree said. “Get a sack, knock the ball out of the quarterback’s hand. Stuff like that to, like I said, help create more offensive possessions for our offense.”
The Rams have created 10 turnovers in eight games this season, although five of them came in the Week 4 win over the Arizona Cardinals. They have just one turnover in the four games since then, resulting in four losses.
The Rams were either even or ahead in the turnover margin in all three of their wins this season, while they have been behind in all five of their losses. While part of that can be blamed on the offense as they need to not turn the ball over, if the defense can create more turnovers then that will help out a struggling offensive unit tremendously.
