Trent McDuffie on What the Rams’ Defense Could Look Like with Garrett & Donald

The show has a new segment, and it finally had the right guest to run it on. Is he back yet?

Trent McDuffie, first Ram to face the question, handled it about how you would expect. "No, not that I know of," he said. "But know that we are waiting if he is."

That is the state of the Aaron Donald watch. What makes it more than a running bit is who is already here. The idea of Myles Garrett and Donald lined up in front of a cornerback is, as Rich put it, nuts from a fan's point of view. McDuffie has been asking around the building about it.

"I even try to think of it asking Sean McVay and the offensive perspective and talking to Stafford," he said. "I'm like, how are you guys even going to do your blocking schemes? Who are you going to slide to? Who are you going to try to double team? What problems does Aaron Donald and Myles Garrett have on the offense? And they're both just like, we don't even know. It's going to be a problem regardless."

McDuffie's own reaction was less analytical. "Sitting on the back end, I'm cheesing just thinking about it."

The relationship between a pass rush and a secondary is a trade, and he described his end of it plainly. Every time the defense takes the field he tells the line he is buying them time, half a second here, two seconds there, long enough to beat a man and get home. The return is what he actually wants, which is the ball back in Matthew Stafford's hands. Anyone added to this roster, he said, just raises the standard.

He has done this before with an MVP on the other sideline of practice. "As you know, Kansas City with Pat Mahomes, he was great and we know what he could do," McDuffie said. "Being able to come over here on a team that also has the same kind of strategy at going out there and putting points on the board, I'm excited."

Asked what Garrett looks like up close, McDuffie went straight to the get-off. "He's like three yards in the backfield off of one step." Everything in camp has matched the billing, and none of it, he keeps noting, is about sacks. There is no ego in that room, he said, and Garrett does his job at a high level while trying to make everyone around him better.

The detail work is what sold him. How Garrett walks into the building, how he prepares his body, what happens the second the chin strap is buckled. "He's ready to shoot out of the cannon," McDuffie said.

Rich raised the wrinkle that could actually change what Garrett is on this team. He has almost never played with a fourth-quarter lead. McDuffie has.

"When you're playing from behind, it's not that you're having to do more, but every little thing matters a little bit more," he said. Trailing teams see the run game, the clock-killing, fewer chances for a lineman to make a game-changing play. Leading teams get the opposite, and McDuffie wants that job.

"I love being in that position, especially as a defensive player, and knowing that the game's kind of in our hands," he said. "We get to go throw all our best plays at them. We can just tell Myles Garrett, just go rush. Go get in the backfield and really let's just end this game."

He expects it to show up big. Garrett is too smart and too analytical for it not to.