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Sarah Barshop, ESPN Staff WriterDec 28, 2024, 06:00 AM ET
- Sarah Barshop covers the Los Angeles Rams for ESPN. She joined ESPN in 2016 to cover the Green Bay Packers for ESPN Milwaukee. She then moved to Houston to cover the Texans. She came to ESPN after working as a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated. You can follow her on Twitter @sarahbarshop.
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Rams‘ defensive end Braden Fiske is no stranger to hearing teammate Jared Verse‘s trash talk on the field.
The rookies, drafted 20 picks apart by the Rams, were also teammates at Florida State. And when the Seminoles played the Florida Gators in 2023, Fiske said, “He just would not stop.”
“To the point where I’m just looking at him, ‘What are we doing?'” Fiske said. “We got to line up and play the game, bro.”
“Sometimes I’m just, ‘Jared, please shut up. Let’s go. Come on. It’s enough. You got it.’ This guy is fuming on it. ‘Just give it up.’ But I just let him do his thing. It’s kind of like his strength in the field, his yelling at other people.”
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That “yelling” — and the energy it provides — revealed itself immediately with the Rams. Though Verse, the team’s first first-round pick since 2016, is the current favorite to win NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year (-500 per ESPN BET), his first season had its growing pains. Verse has learned the importance of playing within the framework of the defense rather than trying to be a “hero” on every play. This has been especially important for a group that has had the task of playing without future Hall of Fame defensive tackle Aaron Donald, who retired in March.
“I’ve seen him be really responsive to coaching,” coach Sean McVay said. “He’s an exciting guy that has a great charisma. He has a great toughness about himself. I think he’s continuing to use all these experiences as he matures and grows.”
Through Week 16, Verse ranks first in quarterback hits (17) among rookies and in tackles for loss (11), according to ESPN Research. He is also tied for first with two passes batted and two fumble recoveries. His 66 quarterback pressures are tied for fifth among all players and 15 more than the next rookie.
“[The trash talking] was bad and then it got better,” Fiske said of this past season. “And then as he started getting some more confidence on the field, it got way worse.”
Although his teammates can give him a hard time about the amount of talking he does — “He’s so far and above and beyond anyone that I’ve ever met in my life,” wide receiver Cooper Kupp said — there’s no doubt the energy and work he has brought to the team has been noticed and appreciated.
“He’s really the battery to our group,” Rams’ outside linebacker Byron Young said. “The energy he brings. Everything. He makes me want to go harder. Since he got here, I improved on so many things.”
Verse is the Rams’ first first-round pick since 2016 and is the current favorite to win Defensive Rookie of the Year (-500 per ESPN BET). Ric Tapia/Getty Images
THE NFL WORLD got a front row seat to Verse’s trash talking when he was mic’d up for the Rams’ victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Week 8. Young was standing near Verse when Vikings center Garrett Bradbury said, “You talk a lot.”
“And you can’t stop me,” Verse replied.
“I was just laughing,” Young said. “I’m just sitting here like, ‘Bro.’ He just telling [a] grown man this, just telling the guys that, ‘Whatever, you can’t stop you though.’ And [Bradbury] just didn’t say nothing.”
Rams defensive tackle Kobie Turner said, “Verse will chirp from the first play to the last play.” And it doesn’t matter who he’s talking to.
“He was getting into an argument with Justin Jefferson and I’m like, ‘You’re not even guarding him,”‘ Turner said with a smile. “‘Don’t turn [Jefferson] up too much.’ Or he’ll start talking to the center and I’m like, ‘I’m the one over here taking on the double-teams. But it gives him an edge and so that gives us an edge as a defense as well.”
Against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 7, Verse was talking to one of their tackles, Turner said, and was “sitting there telling them exactly what he’s going to do.”
“He is like, ‘I’m about to power you. I’m literally about to run you back into the quarterback and get a pressure or get a sack. I’m about to go power.’ And he comes out of his stance and he does exactly that and gets a pressure. I’m pretty sure it was in the red zone, [Verse] forces an errant throw, and I’m pretty sure we’re off the field on third down.
“And I was like, OK, he’s talking and he means it for sure.”
And it works.
“He has an ability to be able to get into some guys’ heads,” Turner said. “And there’s some O-linemen that are weak-minded in where that plays.”
But Verse’s trash talk is not limited to opponents. The outside linebacker’s locker is in one corner of the Rams’ locker room, but he can often be heard shouting clearly on the other side of it.
In early December, former Miami Hurricanes safety and Rams teammate Kamren Kinchens walked into the locker room to find a pyramid of Pop-Tarts boxes sitting in his locker. The boxes were put there by Verse, who was poking fun at Kinchens’ Hurricanes finishing one spot out of the College Football Playoff and playing in the Pop-Tarts Bowl (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, Saturday) instead.
“He just going to bother you,” Young said. “You know what I’m saying? Even if you having a bad day, he just going to joke with you. Even if it’s not just talking trash, he going to just joke with you to cheer you up.”
“We tell Jared Verse, we need you to energize the group, we need you to be yourself, we need you to talk trash how you do. That brings everybody together,” teammate Byron Young said. Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images
AFTER THE RAMS lost to the Green Bay Packers in Week 5 to fall to 1-4, a conversation Turner had with Verse sticks out to the rookie. After the game — one in which Verse said he “didn’t really do anything that was impactful to help the team” — Turner, a team captain, came up to Verse and told him, “You have to be better.”
It was just one of many conversations the pair has had this season as the defense figured out how to improve from the unit that gave up 489 total yards, including 231 rushing, against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 2.
“He’s a guy who can win at a high clip and there are certain opportunities that he was taking maybe to win, but that wasn’t within the framework of the defense,” Turner said. “And so that’s always been my main point to him is to just know when your ops show up and when you know when your ops show up, you realize that you have a whole lot more opportunities to make plays within the framework of the defense.
“But when you don’t know where those ops show up, then maybe you miss some of those chances and now you get risky and you’re taking plays when you shouldn’t be.”
It’s not an easy thing to do, Rams outside linebackers coach Joe Coniglio said.
“It’s really hard, especially a guy who’s got a dynamic skill set like Jared,” Coniglio said. “I think the beauty of Jared is that he anticipates he can make every play, but I also think sometimes that can be a detriment.”
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Against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 12, Verse said in the first half, he was “trying to make a big impact,” only to see quarterback Jalen Hurts or running back Saquon Barkley finding space in the gap he had left. The Eagles ran for 314 yards in that game.
Turner said he has seen Verse take “ownership” of his mistakes, even stopping Turner after a play when he made a move he hadn’t communicated, saying, “‘My fault. I own that. I’ll talk to you next time, or I just won’t take it,'” Turner recalls.
Verse said the biggest thing he has learned this season is that “you have to trust the others around you.”
“You don’t have to do everything,” Verse said. “You don’t have to carry the world. You don’t have to be Atlas, you don’t have to do anything extra. Just do your one of 11. Everything should be good. The coaches know what they’re doing. You’ve got to trust the process. I think after the Eagles game, that was probably my biggest lesson of realizing I don’t have to do more than what I’m capable of.”
Said Turner: “He’s done a tremendous job and I’ve seen so much growth from him and so much maturity in him on just being able to do the things that are going to help this defense succeed.”
Verse has 4.5 sacks this season but hasn’t had any since his 1.5-sack game against Minnesota in Week 8. Though his effort “hasn’t necessarily shown up in the stat book as much in the later weeks,” Turner said, “he’s been playing a lot more sound team ball, and that’s allowed our defense to succeed a lot more as well.”
“It is really cool to see him grasp the totality of the game and how to help the team and how to still make those big plays, but also how not to cost the team in some of those big moments as well,” Turner said.
When the Rams need it most, they can count on Verse’s energy to help them rally — a quality they’ll need as they hope to make the playoffs in the coming two weeks: “That’s an energy boost,” Young said. “We tell Jared Verse, we need you to energize the group, we need you to be yourself, we need you to talk trash how you do. That brings everybody together. “
