RAMS : Faryniarz Takes a Step Back and Adapts

Brett Faryniarz is not the kind of linebacker you’d think belongs in a defense like this.

Faryniarz is a straight-ahead charger suddenly tossed into a defense that asks its outside linebackers to backpedal, to chase, to actually cover smaller men up and down the field without assistance. In the past, the Rams never wanted Faryniarz to do much more than rush the quarterback or take quick, short drops into zone coverage, and as long as he did that, he had a place on the team as a valued reserve linebacker.

Things changed over the off-season, and Faryniarz had to change, too. When former defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur was fired along with his 3-4, soft-zone alignment, and replaced by Jeff Fisher and his attacking, 4-3 scheme, the linebacker positions changed.

Faryniarz, who is a four-linebacker system linebacker, was suddenly forced to adapt to life in a three-linebacker world. And so far, he’s surviving it.

“I didn’t know what to expect because we’ve never run the man defense before,” Faryniarz said during a recent break in the Rams’ training camp at UC Irvine. “We’ve always been a zone defense. I had a lot of apprehension, I guess, trying to adjust, but I’ve picked it up pretty well.”

Right now, he’s swinging between the right side and left side, battling No. 2 draft pick Roman Phifer fairly closely for the starting right spot and taking advantage of the continued holdout of Fred Strickland to share time with Mike Wilcher, last year’s starting right linebacker, on the left side.

The more he plays, the more the new Rams’ defensive staff is seeing that Faryniarz, who has six career sacks and no career interceptions, is more than a straight 3-4 blitzer, and that maybe he and Phifer could be the team’s best outside tandem, after all. Faryniarz has looked capable as a pass-coverage linebacker, making a couple of lunging plays at downfield passes that caught Ram Coach John Robinson’s attention.

‘I think he’s doing a good job of adjusting,” Robinson said recently. “I think he’s still better when things come at him than he is against the pass, but I think he’s working at it and doing well.”

The Rams showed how much confidence they had in Faryniarz when they selected Phifer with their second-round draft choice this year, and immediately began planning to play Phifer at right linebacker, the spot Faryniarz had been penciled to play.

Wilcher was moved to the left side because the coaches felt he would have too much coverage responsibility on the right in the new defense.

“Yeah, I kind of let it get to me early, but once I got into minicamp and training camp, you have to figure that they’re just going to play who’s best there,” Faryniarz said of his reaction when Phifer was drafted.

“I know they drafted him to start on the right side. He’s still young, but he’s coming around really well. If he beats me out, he beats me out.”

Just last week, with Phifer doing well on the right and Strickland, the planned left-side linebacker still out of camp, Faryniarz began getting his shot to compete on the left.

“We are really shuffling people around, trying to find the best combination, trying to find the best people to put on the field,” linebackers coach Ronnie Jones said. “If it turns out that we have the best two playing on one side, we’ve got to split them.

“Brett’s a guy that will give us a little bit of flexibility because he’s intelligent enough to play on either side of the ball.”

Faryniarz (6-3, 232) thinks he is best-suited to play on the more physically-demanding left side, anyway. Also, especially in the infamous ‘46’ defensive scheme Fisher uses about 25% of the time, there are greater chances to rush the passer for the left linebacker and less responsibilities to cover people man-to-man.

The athletic, agile Phifer is a much closer model to the kind of player Fisher is looking for at outside linebacker. Case in point: Kevin Greene, who was last year’s starting left linebacker and who could be considered a bigger, stronger version of Faryniarz, has been moved to defensive end because he’s a straight pass-rusher.

“I like the left side better, because in the ‘46’ I’m the outside guy, and he’s (the outside guy) on the blitz a lot, and I like to do that,” Faryniarz said. “So there’s a lot of opportunity for sacks there, so that’s nice.”

The left-side linebacker almost always lines up over the offense’s tight end, meaning he has major point-of-attack run-stopping duties. And if the tight end stays in for pass-blocking, Faryniarz will be free to go after the quarterback.

“Yeah, you’re just more free to open up and play football,” he said. “Before, you had a specific area to where you’d drop every time. Now, you don’t know what you’re going to do when the ball’s snapped until they come out (of the huddle).”