The Los Angeles Rams had a solid safety duo on defense the last two years with John Johnson and Lamarcus Joyner. Johnson remains and is one of the best young defensive backs in football, but Joyner left in free agency and joined the Raiders.
The Rams replaced him with Eric Weddle, who’s still playing at a high level despite being 34 years old. His experience and reliability in the back end will be valuable to the Rams, particularly Johnson.
Weddle will help elevate Johnson’s play and develop Taylor Rapp, who will presumably take over as a starter sometime down the line. But for now, Weddle and Johnson are viewed as an elite tandem.
Pro Football Focus ranked them No. 2 in the NFL, behind only Eddie Jackson and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix in Chicago. Here’s what PFF wrote about Weddle, complimenting him for his work in coverage and against the run.
In his most recent season, Weddle was once again an impact player against both the run and the pass. He allowed a total of 111 yards into his coverage at an average of just 0.18 yards per coverage snap — tied for the eighth-best mark at the position. Proving that there’s still plenty left in the tank, Weddle was at his best in coverage against wide receivers, yielding a passer rating of just 57.0 when quarterbacks targeted wideouts in his coverage. Again, showing his all-around ability, Weddle also missed only five tackles on 78 attempts, and he finished the year with 17 total defensive stops against the run, the 17th-most at the position.
As for Johnson, he was PFF’s No. 7 safety in the NFL last season. The site is already high on the young safety as it is, and that’s without taking into account that Weddle will be playing next to him in 2019.
PFF calls Johnson “an emerging star in the Rams’ secondary” and is “quickly making a name for himself as one of the league’s best coverage safeties.” He broke up 11 passes in 2018 and forced an incompletion on 17.4% of his targets in coverage, which was the sixth-best of any safety since 2006.
It’s easy to see why so many are excited about Johnson’s potential and view him as a breakout candidate in 2019.
Rounding out PFF’s top five safety tandems were the third-ranked Ravens (Earl Thomas and Tony Jefferson), No. 4-ranked Jets (Jamal Adams and Marcus Maye) and the fifth-ranked Vikings (Harrison Smith and Anthony Harris).
