Los Angeles Rams: The good, bad and ugly vs. the Carolina Panthers

Aaron Donald and the defense was not that good

Just like Gurley, it is unfair for fans to expect an absolutely remarkable performance out of Aaron Donald every single week. Is he the best defensive player in the league and perhaps the best overall player compared to his peers? Yes, but that does not mean that every single week will be amazing.

But still, the performance he had on Sunday, or lack of performance I should say, was bad. And it isn’t necessarily Donald’s fault as the Panthers did a great job of doubling him and making someone else on the defense beat them.

The problem is that, while people stepped up times, there was not much to get excited about on defense. This is worrisome as other teams can focus on Donald as well knowing that the other guys won’t beat them.

Donald only had one tackle in the game and alone quarterback hit. This is the only the fourth game since 2016 in which he had one or fewer tackles.

And quite frankly, the rest of the defense was bailed out by some costly mistakes by the Panthers. The Rams recovered the ball at their own 30-yard line after D.J. Moore made a high school-level fumble.

Two drives later the Panthers missed a field goal. The next drive the Rams got the ball off of a fumbled backward pass that the Panthers didn’t jump on. Then, late in the fourth quarter, Cam Newton threw a pass literally straight to Corey Littleton.

The defense did have some nice drives where they forced three and outs, but part of the reason why those drives were successful was that Newton really didn’t look fully healthy.

The Rams defense did enough to win, that is all that matters, but they definitely looked like a defense that could be beaten by a better offense.