When the Rams report to Loyola Marymount on July 25, the biggest question in camp won’t be a position battle. NFL.com’s Grant Gordon, in his NFC West training camp preview published this week, put it at the top of the Rams’ list: how Myles Garrett meshes with defensive coordinator Chris Shula’s system.
The trade math is the context. Los Angeles sent Jared Verse, a 2027 first-rounder, a 2028 second and a 2029 third to Cleveland for Garrett, who is coming off a season in which he set the NFL’s single-season sack record with 23 — more than the entire 49ers roster managed last year. Verse’s 7.5 sacks go out the door; Garrett’s production ostensibly replaces them, joining a returning line where Byron Young (team-high 12 sacks), Kobie Turner (seven) and Braden Fiske (three) combined for 22.
The scheme translation is the part worth watching, and it’s why this is a camp story rather than a settled fact. In Cleveland, under Jim Schwartz’s wide-nine principles, Garrett operated as a one-man pass-rushing gang — 51 sacks over his final three seasons there. Shula runs a different structure, and his public position, via NFL.com, is that he’ll bend it around his new edge rusher: “You’re not gonna take Michael Jordan, LeBron, all those guys and pull them out of their comfort zone.” That’s the right instinct. The value of this trade was never Garrett-as-scheme-piece; it was Garrett-as-gravity, the player who forces two blockers and frees Young and Turner to win their one-on-ones. The next few weeks at LMU are where that theory meets Shula’s playbook.
Gordon’s larger point about this roster stands, too: the Rams won the offseason on paper — Garrett, Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson imported for a defense backing the league’s No. 1 offense and reigning MVP Matthew Stafford — and paper championships have a documented failure rate. Andy Reid’s 2011 “Dream Team” Eagles missed the playoffs entirely. The Rams’ bet is that a 30-year-old all-time great travels better than a collection of parts. Camp is where they start to find out.
