The Rams have an obvious free agent fit left outstanding that should be their last priority of the offseason
There’s only one free agent left on the board the Rams should do whatever it takes to land.
The Los Angeles Rams have done a good job of setting up the roster to be in prime position to make a Super Bowl run in the 2026 season. They’ve attacked and solved virtually all of their primary needs, including overhauling the secondary, and have set themselves up to attack the upcoming 2026 NFL Draft on their terms.
However, there is one spot that is a glaring need left on the roster: linebacker. Nate Landman shouldn’t be the primary linebacker for the team, while Omar Speights has been inconsistent at best as the LB2. They should upgrade here if they truly are serious about going “all in” this season.
Fortunately, the perfect free agent fit is still out there, and he makes plenty of sense as an upgrade for the upcoming 2026 season.
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Former New York Giants linebacker Bobby Okereke is still a free agent, and is the best linebacker left out there in free agency. Okereke has links to the Rams, as he played with Special Teams Coordinator Bubba Ventrone in Indianapolis
Would the Rams invest so much at linebacker, given how much dime they played last season? The answer should still be yes. Yes, they led the league in dime personnel usage at roughly 30% of snaps. Per SportsInfoSolutions, their dime looks (2-3-6) was for 316 plays last season. However, they still played with two linebackers on the field for 686 total snaps. Their 2-4-5 usage was 4th in the league, and their base 3-4 was 9th. That’s still an astronomical amount of snaps left over to feature multiple linebackers.
Additionally, even when the Rams are in dime, Okereke is an upgrade over Landman in coverage. I’m not sure it’s particularly close either. Okereke still has plenty of juice left in the tank athleticism-wise, has good awareness and route recognition in coverage, and has the size and length to handle tight ends. That’s a skill set the Rams do not have at linebacker.
There is a trend of heavier personnel developing all around the league. The 49ers with Kyle Shanahan, the Lions with Ben Johnson/Dan Campbell, the Seahawks with Klint Kubiak, and the Eagles with Nick Sirianni have beaten the Rams in recent years with multiple tight end and/or fullback looks by taking advantage of their linebacker room. The Rams match heavy personnel with their base two linebacker defense. The result? The 28th-ranked success rate.
When the Rams go into their 6-DB looks, they played nearly 30% of snaps in man coverage (a figure that should only increase next season after adding Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson). In five DBs or fewer, that figure drops to just 13%. The Rams had to hide their linebackers as much as possible, and it severely limits their ability to defend these looks.
Okereke fixes that for this season. He has the ability to hang in man coverage, allowing the Rams to get more creative defensively. This, along with their expected shift in coverage, will allow their defensive line more time to harass opposing quarterbacks as well.
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