I was very happy that the Rams were able to snap up James Laurinaitis in the second round and add depth at DT and CB. call me crazy, but I think our defense will be very good next season; and I'll tell you why.

First, we have a lot less black holes than last year. Corey Chavous is gone and we now have two solid linebackers instead of just one. Also, Ron Bartell solidfied himself as a starter last year.

Second, our existing talent will get better. Chris Long had an excellent rookie season for a DE. Not too many guys do better than 4 sacks their rookie year. I think he will break out and get double digit sacks this year. Carriker will continue his development as a DT and so will Ron Bartell at CB. Also, opposite of Bartell will be Hill, Fletcher, or King. Anyone of those three could step up and be a good NFL starter.

Yes the other DE is a little bit of a problem; Little was only playing on 3rd downs last season. But, I think that can mitigated by running a different system. Something that no one really talked about is the new formation that we ran. It was a 3-4 or a 3-3-5, whichever you want to call it. We had three lineman, three linebackers and five DBs. But, we always had Jason Craft blitz. If we run a similiar scheme this year, I think we will be very successful.