Will Rams Have to Replace Chris Shula With Familiar Face?

Barring anything unexpected, Chris Shula will be the Rams defensive coordinator in 2025. However, it would hardly be a surprise to see him as a head coach in 2026, thus leaving a vacancy at the position, perhaps the most important position on Sean McVay's coaching staff.

What separates McVay from other coaches is that he gets both his offensive and defensive coordinators hired on a regular basis as all of his defensive coordinators have taken head coaching jobs after leaving the Rams.

Wade Phillips went to spring football, Brandon Staley went to the Chargers, Raheem Morris went to the Falcons, and now we wait on Shula's next destination.

With an expected vacant, the Rams may be compiling a list of names to keep an eye on in preparation for Shula's probable departure in about eight months.

With recent chatter revolving around Jalen Ramsey's situation, words from Ramsey himself makes one wonder if the Rams already have their guy lined up.

Let's look at recent events. When McVay had the replace Brandon Staley after the 2020 season, he made it clear that he wants a base 3-4 defense. That's what Phillips and Staley ran and the same defense Raheem Morris runs, thus leading to his hire.

McVay may also want experience. Let's not forget Shula's growing pains during the beginning of the 2024 season. Now several factors contributed to that including learning how to coach without Aaron Donald, something Shula himself admitted was hard to do and issues in coverage with defensive backs seemingly out of position, especially Kam Kinchens.

But everyone on the defense, players and staff locked in after giving up two immediate touchdowns to the Minnesota Vikings in their regular season matchup and they have been excellent ever since. McVay probably does not want to relive that growing process.

McVay does have several candidates on staff that could be promoted and deservingly so but it is my opinion that the Rams are lining up Carolina Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero for the Rams defensive coordinator job.

Evero is out of contract after this season, the Rams give him a better chance of getting a head coaching job, something Evero has made it known that he wants, and the Rams have better players on defense than the Panthers.

Evero proved himself with Denver, having the league's top defense for a portion of the 2022 season while the Broncos' offense sputtered. The Panthers haven't supplied him with adequate weapons, allowing Brian Burns to depart for minimum compensation.

Evero was a Rams assistant from 2017-2021, runs a base 3-4 defense, loves the Rams considering his defense just added Bobby Brown III and Christian Rozeboom this offseason, and he's a plug and play coordinator with no growing pains needed. Seems like a perfect fit but the final piece to the puzzle was Jalen Ramsey's recent words about him.