Los Angeles Rams: Nigel Bradham
For the past two years, it looked as though the Rams were going to be the next big team in the NFL. The Rams had a good young QB in Jared Goff, they had a quality defense with one of the best players in the NFL in Aaron Donald, and they had one of the bright young minds in football in Sean McVay, but after last season, there is some doubt in LA.
After having two incredible seasons, one of which they made the Super Bowl, the Rams struggled this past year. The Rams only managed to go 9-7 and miss the playoffs entirely. Their lack of success last season can be attributed to a few things, one of which was the poor play out of the Rams offensive line.
For the past few years, the Rams had one of the best offensive lines in the NFL. The Rams had the likes of Andrew Whitworth, Rob Havenstein, and Rodger Saffold all playing extremely well for them, and while Havenstein and Whitworth are still on the team, this past season was a train-wreck along the offensive line. Whitworth took a slight step back in his play, but the loss of Saffold and a massive step back in the play of Havenstein hurt the Rams greatly
The Rams offensive line play was a massive problem for the Rams last season, but another major problem for the Rams was their QB play. 2018 Jared Goff, and 2019 Goff are night and day compared to each other as Goff’s Passer Rating, completion percentage, adjusted yards per attempt, and his yards per completion all took a major turn for the worse. Not everything on the Rams got worse this past season though as a major bright spot on this Rams team last season was the linebacker play.
One of the best linebackers on the field last season for any team was Cory Littleton. Littleton is not a traditional throwback stop the run type of linebacker, but more of a modern-day coverage linebacker. While Littleton played very well for the Rams, he ended up heading to the Raiders this year in free agency, leaving a massive hole at linebacker for the Rams.
Nigel Bradham has spent most of his career out east playing for either the Buffalo Bills or the Philadelphia Eagles. With both teams, Bradham has pretty much been always a quality linebacker at middle linebacker, but now once again, he finds himself on the free-agent market.
Bradham certainly is not the flashiest player in the world, and he will not offer a massive amount in terms of defending the run, but like Littleton, he is at his best in coverage. Bradham is not on the level of Littleton in terms of coverage, but he gives teams the ability to leave a linebacker on the field, while not hurting themselves greatly in terms of coverage.
With Littleton gone the future of the linebacker position is remains a major question mark for the Rams, and Bradham likely will not be the answer to it, but what he can offer is a quality player for the present who can mitigate their linebacker problems for the time being.