Byron Young, Rams defense try to take lessons from preseason opener – Orange County Register

THOUSAND OAKS ― As he took the field at SoFi Stadium on Saturday, Rams rookie Byron Young allowed himself to look around and take it all in.

Not too long ago, Young was a manager at a Dollar General variety store in Georgia, a spot in the NFL just a wild dream. Soon after, he tried out for a local military academy’s football team, then worked his up to a junior college before the University of Tennessee.

But on Saturday, the outside linebacker made his NFL debut, albeit in a preseason game.

“It’s really kind of mind-blowing sometimes, even though I went through the journey,” Young said. “I’m still trying to figure out at what point did I really realize I’m going to do this. But I just focused on every day, taking it day by day and not trying to think ahead, remembering the main goal.”

That’s an important lesson for both Young and the Rams defense as a whole to keep in mind as they look to learn from Saturday’s performance against the Chargers. There’s a long way for this unit to go to reach the Rams’ past heights, and progress can only come in small, daily increments.

One of the primary concerns for the Rams leaving their first preseason game is the run defense. The Chargers gained 214 yards on the ground and 6.9 per carry. Undrafted rookie Elijah Dotson was able to break off a few big runs around the edge, including a 40-yarder.

Examining the film, one of the recurring themes was edge containment.

“How you want to set the edge, it wasn’t the standard, so you got to do some of those things better that the people did when they got in and got the opportunity to make those plays,” defensive coordinator Raheem Morris said. “It got a little mushy up front. We like to see some guys be able to get off blocks and make some of those plays for minus yards or two yards.”

Given the young players on the defense, Morris feels like it will be easy enough to take Saturday as nothing more than a learning experience.

“That’s the beauty of it, particularly with a young group. Everything’s brand new, right?” Morris said. “A lot of the guys, that was their first NFL game, that was their first time walking to SoFi. … You get these very teachable, correctable moments on tape that’s exciting, then you get a chance to watch guys respond. Their first to the second game is always such a big response.”

Young has already seen similar results since he was drafted.

At Tennessee, he could rely on his raw athleticism and speed to blow past offensive tackles and blow up plays. NFL offensive linemen are faster on their feet than their collegiate counterparts, however, so Young has had to work harder on his fundamentals.

He sees progress in using his hands and arms to create separation from blockers, something he struggled with in OTAs. He believes that using that technique will help him to create stronger containment on the edge during run plays.

“Sometimes I feel like we was too close to the tackles where they could grab us and hold us,” Young said. “I was trying to hold an edge and I got too close. So it happens. We just got to have better fundamentals every day so that’s what we work on.”

That day-at-a-time approach paid dividends in Young’s journey from Dollar General to the NFL. Now he’ll try to implement it in his journey from rookie third-round pick to contributor on the edge for the Rams.

“That’s one of my mentalities that I try to use,” Young said. “Every day, keep doing the same thing. Because from the first day of OTAs to now, you can see the huge difference. Just every day trying to get better and remember the route I took. It wasn’t easy, and I try not to take that for granted.”