Rams Vs Giants: James Laurinaitis Knows What To Do

The St. Louis Rams linebackers have a big task tonight. James Laurinaitis and his two partners on the outside will be key to stopping a New York Giants rushing attack featuring the terrible twosome of Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs. Laurinaitis said as much in an interview with New York's WFAN today. 

When you look at the Giants historically and see what Tom Coughlin likes to do and they do over there. They are built for power. They are built for a power running game. They got two great backs in Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs. They have two big tight-ends. I played against Jake Ballard in college. We were on the same team at Ohio State. We played together every day at practice and he is a 6'6", 270-pound, tight-end. They are built to do that and they are built to do play action and really let the passing game come off their running game. We know that they are thinking we need to get back to running the football and get that established on Monday to start the football game, so hopefully we are prepared for it.

With JL in the middle and new additions Ben Leber and Brady Poppinga on the outside, the Rams linebackers can cover the field pretty well. They got in trouble last week overpursuing LeSean McCoy, mostly while trying to contain Michael Vick. Together, it conspired against them and allowed the Eagles to run up a big score in the second half of the game. 

Laurinaitis put the Giants' offense in the context of the game against the Eagles last week on air as well.

It was like a track meet trying to chase around Michael Vick. I tell you what that guy is one of a kind. He's extremely talented and a totally different football team and a totally different mindset. The Eagles are a lot of...deep shots they want you to fight that and New York is built for power and they look to do double moves off their play action. We gotta be ready.

Taking away the Giants ability to run and putting pressure on Manning is all the defense needs to do to get the win. That's not at all as easy to do as it is to encapsulate in a single sentence. Last year, the Rams defense had a remarkable way of bouncing back.