By admin 
No NFL team did more to improve its defense in the 2026 offseason than the Los Angeles Rams.
Read more Ranking the NFL’s 10 Best Stadium Chants and Fight Songs
Following their 31-27 NFC Championship game loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Rams general manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay led a charge to improve that defense by any means necessary.
- On March 9, they signed former Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Jaylen Watson to a three-year, $51 million contract with $34 million guaranteed.
- On March 12, they officially traded four draft picks to the Chiefs for cornerback Trent McDuffie, Watson’s estimable bookend. They then gave McDuffie a new four-year, $124 million deal with $100 million guaranteed, making him one of the highest-paid players at his position in history.
- Then, on June 1, they traded edge-rusher Jared Verse and more draft picks (including a 2027 first-rounder) to the Cleveland Browns for reigning Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett, one of the best at his position we’ve ever seen.
Snead and McVay have never been shy about giving away draft compensation for players who have already established themselves in the NFL (hence the “F Them Picks” memes), so these deals came as little surprise as the team looks to maximize its competitive window with quarterback Matthew Stafford. Certainly, Watson and McDuffie will help a secondary that was exposed far too often in the 2025 season, and adding Garrett to a defensive front already loaded with disruptors should be extremely bad news for every quarterback facing these guys in 2026.
Where there is still some uncertainty, though, is at the linebacker position. Before the 2025 season, the Rams signed former Atlanta Falcons LB Nate Landman to a one-year, $1.1 million deal. It was an afterthought as the numbers would suggest, but defensive coordinator Chris Shula saw something in Landman right away, and Landman paid that faith back in Week 1. In a 14-9 win over the Houston Texans, Landman had 10 tackles and a game-clinching forced fumble, which garnered him NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors.
Nate Landman’s first game with the @RamsNFL.
Pretty, pretty good. pic.twitter.com/TwCxMSeVHg
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 17, 2026
From Week 1 through the NFC Championship game, Landman continued to stand out for the most part. Per Pro Football Focus, he totaled 114 solo tackles, 57 stops, 10 tackles for loss, and five forced fumbles. In coverage, he allowed 59 catches on 73 targets for 651 yards, 431 yards after the catch, three touchdowns, one interception, eight pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 111.8.
Landman’s place in Shula’s defense is especially important because of the sheer amount of dime defense Shula calls. Last season, the Rams put six defensive backs on the field for 347 defensive snaps, by far the NFL’s most – the Baltimore Ravens ranked second at 259. When you play that often with just one linebacker on the field, said linebacker had better be able to do just about everything at a really high level. For the most part, Landman was able to fill the role.
Landman didn’t get out of Season 1 with the Rams without a new contract extending his time with the team. On November 22, he inked a new three-year, $22.5 million deal that will keep him with the team through the 2028 season. And if Landman can continue to be the glue in the middle of Shula’s defense, that’s an extreme bargain for the position.
Read more Why Is the World Cup Played Every Four Years?
“He’s so humble,” McVay said of Landman a few days after the new contract was signed. “He wouldn’t say anything. As soon as things happen, you guys are… as you know, sometimes you know before me on some of this stuff. But the reaction from his teammates was so authentic. That’s part of what I talk about – the enjoyment of other’s successes or good things happening. He’s earned that respect, and he checks all the boxes of the things that we want to be about with the character, competitiveness, the mental and physical toughness, his ability to uplift and elevate others, and his ability to put his arm around guys.
“Like I’ve told you guys before about him, he’s just got a great feel, a great emotional intelligence and understanding how to be able to lead, pick and choose his spots with the right timing and the right tone. He’s really endeared himself to this locker room in a very short amount of time by just naturally, as I’ve come to get to know him, just being himself.”
Landman certainly had no issue endearing himself to his defensive coordinator.
“I think now it’s just that he’s had the production to back his talk up,” Shula said in January of Landman’s development. “When you come in… in OTAs, he hadn’t played a snap with the full defense. Now, he’s been there and done that. He’s made plays to win games, and he’s made plays in big games. He plays consistently every single week. He has the production to match all that leadership talk that he does.”
Now that Landman has established himself with authority in the new season’s Most Interesting Defense, it’s worth mentioning that a few things still need work. Per PFF, only Patrick Queen of the Pittsburgh Steelers (32) and Devin White of the Las Vegas Raiders (26) had more missed tackles than Landman’s 25, and while that’s an inevitable offshoot of opportunity (Landman had the NFL’s most snaps at linebacker last season with 1,224), you’d like to see him be a bit more direct when he’s converging on his target.
This is also true in coverage. While Landman could hit his landmarks well enough when dealing with running backs, tight ends, and slot receivers, he didn’t always converge at the right time to prevent the play.
If Nate Landman can get past the occasional coverage lapse in 2026, the @RamsNFL’s defense could be legit unstoppable — especially in dime (which they called more often than any other NFL defense in 2025). pic.twitter.com/0GgtmjjITB
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 17, 2026
Still, what the Rams saw and got from the undrafted free agent out of Colorado exceeded anybody’s expectations. Now, it’s about how far Landman can take his talents. Because if he can become one of the NFL’s true multi-dimensional linebackers, there’s no telling what this defense can be.
Read more Ranking the Raiders’ Top 30 2026 Players: No. 6
Copyright 2026 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This story was originally published July 20, 2026 at 4:45 AM.