Wroten won't be missed on Rams defense
Columnist Jeff Gordon
(E-mail a "Letter to Gordo")By Jeff Gordon
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
07/24/2008
Rams defensive coordinator
Jim Haslett wasn’t exactly counting on defensive tackle
Claude Wroten this season.
“I can’t figure him out,” Haslett admitted Tuesday, the day before the NFL announced his one-year suspension for violating the league’s substance abuse problem. “He has more talent than anybody on this team.
“It doesn’t equate to football right now.”
No, it does not. Wroten’s once-promising career is in ruins. Once upon a time, the Rams viewed him as a first-round talent. He flashed big-time skill at LSU.
Wroten fell to the Rams in the third round of the 2006 draft for a variety of reasons, none of them good. He said all the right stuff, but he was just so-so as a rookie.
Then he missed the four games of last season while serving his first NFL suspension. He did not return to action with much vigor – and now he is gone from Rams Park, probably for good.
Haslett will shrug off the loss. He considered Wroten a fringe player for a unit that he likes very, very much.
“This is going to be a strength of this football team,” Haslett promised. “Just having
Leonard Little back, you don’t know what you miss until he is gone.”
A year ago, injuries decimated the line. Wroten’s suspension was just the first many issues. Little’s season-ending injury robbed the team of its top pass rusher.
James Hall, a rush specialist for the other side of the line, struggled while playing on a bum ankle. Lacking a good push from either side of the line, Haslett has to get creative.
He enjoys the challenge of devising new schematic twists. He came up with some good stuff last season, such as moving middle linebacker
Will Witherspoon to the edge and using him as a pass rusher.
Designing new blitz schemes is one of the fun parts of the job. But exotic Xs and Os can’t totally offset the lack of pass pressure from the basic defensive sets.
“It’s tough when you have to change things every week to manufacture a pass rush,” Haslett said before heading to Wisconsin for the start of training camp.
“We’ll do some of that this year, too. Hopefully we won’t have to do it all the time.”
Haslett is counting on robust play from his bolstered defensive line this season. He hopes to move players around because he can, not because he has to.
He is looking forward to exploiting the versatility of his defenders and putting his depth to good use.
Little is healed and running at full speed again. He is a disruptive pass rusher, arguably the first player other offenses must account for.
On the other side of the line, the Rams expect to start top draft choice Chris Long. The kid made a big impression during the mini-camp and OTAs, but Haslett can’t wait to see what he can do in pads.
If opponents double-team Little, Long could have some fun. Or if Long draws extra attention, then Little will have more room to work on the other side.
Haslett hopes to line up his front four – Little, nose tackle Clifton Ryan, defensive tackle Adam Carriker and Long – and let them attack.
Carriker and Ryan both made big strides as rookies. It is reasonable to expect even more from them this season. Both were stout against the run and Carriker ought to develop into a persistent inside rusher.
Hall re-signed with the Rams and will add depth as a pass rusher. La’Roi Glover will mix in at defensive tackle, especially on pass downs.
And Haslett is especially excited about defensive end Victor Adeyanju, who could also move inside as needs develop. He may be the hardest working Ram on his side of the ball, the anti-Wroten.
“Victor is by far and away our best run defender,” Haslett said. “He needs to improve his pass rush. He made the most progress of anybody during the off-season.”
Haslett expects his front four to become the foundation of a dramatically improved defense.
“I’m looking forward to this,” he said. “I think we have a really good nucleus of young guys on defense.”
And, sad to say, Wroten’s demise was addition by subtraction. One more negative catalyst from last season’s 3-13 collapse is gone.
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