Meet the Rams: Barron’s move to linebacker lucrative, while Ogletree takes on more responsibility
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As the Rams get to work at training camp at UC Irvine, we’ll take a look at the team’s roster, position by position. Today, the linebackers:
Mark Barron took a few steps forward last season.
He had his best season statistically and all he had to do was move a few yards closer to the line of scrimmage.
Barron led the Rams with a career-high 116 tackles last season while making the conversion from safety to linebacker to replace the injured Alec Ogletree at the weakside spot.
He’ll be staying put with Ogletree coming back in the fold.
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Back from the ankle injury, Ogletree is taking a few steps toward the middle and adding a green dot (and radio) to his helmet. Ogletree is set to start at middle linebacker this season, making him responsible for getting the play in to his teammates, reading the offense and, if all goes well, likely leading the team in tackles.
The pressure will be on Ogletree from his coaches on the headset and in replacing one of the team’s veteran leaders and the Rams’ all-time leading tackler James Laurinaitis (852).
The Rams have gotten younger at linebacker, but that won’t change the expectations and demands from defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who won Super Bowl XLIV with the New Orleans Saints.
No. 52 Alec Ogletree, 6-foot-2, 245 pounds
Ogletree, 24, is entering his fourth year in the league out of Georgia. The first-round pick started all 16 games as a rookie and has started every game he’s appeared in with the Rams (36).
In his first two seasons, Ogletree recorded north of 100 tackles, forced 10 fumbles and intercepted three passes, one he returned 98 yards for a touchdown.
Last season, Ogletree suffered an ankle injury in Week 4 against the Arizona Cardinals that knocked him out for the season. Prior to the injury, he had made 42 tackles and a career-high two sacks.
Moving the the middle linebacker position means more responsibility — so has recently becoming a father — but the Rams seemed to signal their faith in him this offseason, exercising his fifth-year option to keep him under contract through 2017.
No. 26 Mark Barron, 6-foot-2, 213 pounds
Barron, 26, has already played five years in the NFL, but this will be the first year he begins as a linebacker instead of a safety.
Barron began his career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who made the Alabama safety the seventh overall pick in the 2012 draft.
After winning two national championships with the Crimson Tide, he moved to the NFC South basement with the Buccaneers where he experienced 11 wins and 21 losses — he lost just six times in college (48-6) in four years — in two seasons before he was traded to the Rams midway through the 2014 campaign.
Coming down from the safety position, Barron is the smallest of the Rams’ starting linebackers. The Rams liked what they saw despite his lack of size and rewarded him with a five-year, $45-million contract in the offseason.
No. 56 Akeem Ayers, 6-foot-3, 255 pounds
Ayers, 27, is back home in L.A. where he went to high school (Verbum Dei) and college (UCLA).
The strongside linebacker signed a two-year deal with the Rams last March after winning Super Bowl XLIX with the New England Patriots. He began that season with the Tennessee Titans, who had drafted him in the second round of the 2011 draft, and ended up in New England via trade.
In six NFL seasons, Ayers has made 299 tackles, 13.5 sacks and three interceptions and forced four fumbles. Ayers will become a free agent following the 2016 season.
Other linebackers: No. 53 Brandon Chubb (Wake Forest), No. 59 Josh Forrest (Kentucky), No. 55 Nic Grigsby (Pittsburgh), No. 54 Bryce Hager, No. 49 Darreon Herring (Vanderbilt), No. 58 Cory Littleton (Washington), No. 50 Cameron Lynch
Follow Matt Wilhalme on Twitter @mattwilhalme
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