LOS ANGELES — When Jared Verse met with Los Angeles Rams outside linebackers coach Joe Coniglio during the predraft process in 2024, he was pretty sure he knew how the interview had gone.
“I thought he hated me,” Verse said. “I thought there was no way in hell I was coming to the Rams, because I thought he hated me. He didn’t laugh or smile at all during our meeting.”
Coniglio laughs when he hears Verse share that story, because what he remembers from that Zoom call was walking out of his office to talk to defensive line coach Giff Smith to tell him how much he loved Verse and how he thought the Florida State defensive lineman would be “a great fit” in Los Angeles.
Now, almost two seasons into their partnership — and one NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award later — Verse, alongside outside linebacker Byron Young, is thriving in L.A. As the pair has gotten to know each other, the resulting trust has helped shape a pass rush that lets their personalities come through on the field.
Young has 24 quarterback hits this season, which is the seventh most in the NFL, and Verse has 22 (10th), according to ESPN Research. The Rams, who play at the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday (8:15 p.m. ET, Amazon), are one of two teams with multiple players in the top 10 in QB hits this season. The connection between Verse and Young — one that has grown in the past two seasons — has turned into a crucial part of the identity of the Rams’ defense.
“They’re really good football players that I think have nice complementary skill sets,” Rams coach Sean McVay said of Young and Verse. “They love and care about each other. I think Joe Coniglio does such a great job setting the temperature and the tone for that room, giving guys the freedom to be themselves, but also has the structure of continuously challenging and pushing them to be who they want to be as players and as men.
“I love those two guys, and I love watching how authentic and real their relationship and support of one another is. They go at each other, too, in a good way as well.”
VERSE HAS NOT shied away from talking about the struggles he had in his rookie season, when he was trying to play what he called hero ball, aiming to make an impact on every play rather than doing his “one of 11” and play within the scheme of the defense.
But after some hard moments last season, Verse said he realized he should trust others around him and that his coaches were putting him in the best position to succeed. Verse had 76 pressures last season, which ranked fourth in the NFL and was 20 more than the next rookie, earning him the league’s defensive rookie of the year honor.
So when Coniglio sat down this offseason to evaluate himself and his position group, he wanted to figure out a way to free up his pass rushers. On a piece of paper, Coniglio came up with “a bunch of different ways that we’re going to insert into the line of scrimmage.” It was part of a five-phase plan he worked on to improve the Rams’ pass rush.
During the process, Coniglio said he realized that by better defining what he was asking for on each play, he allowed his players to put their personalities into their games but still enabled them to “go play fast.”
“The important piece for Jared is having the ability to do his one 11th, but we also want to make sure that Jared doesn’t play like he’s in a box,” Coniglio said of players doing their part. “When I say that, I mean he doesn’t feel like he’s a robot. He can put his personality on it. His football IQ can come to life. Because that’s the beauty of him as a player. If you tie his hands behind his back, he’s not going to be as good as if you let him play fast and free.”
Young said the change has been evident and showed the growth in Coniglio as a coach, too. The pair came to Los Angeles in 2023, and Young said that’s when their bond began.
“Starting from rookie year, you could tell [he was] kind of doing everything by this right here, A, B, C,” Young said. “And then he was like, we got y’all for a reason, we got y’all guys for y’all personality and what y’all do good. So he don’t want to pigeonhole us and put us in a box. He wants to be able to go out there and do what we do and feel more comfortable and confident.
“He’s just seen me develop and grow and he said, you know what? I’m going to give you some freedom so you can put your own little sauce onto it for us to be successful.”
McVay said one of the things Coniglio does best is identifying “what you are at your best.”
“I think both B.Y. [Young] and Verse are excellent players for us,” McVay said. “There’s some crossover, but there’s also some different things that I think they complement each other well at.”
Rams rookie outside linebacker Josaiah Stewart, who was a third-round pick, said Coniglio coaches him in a way he wasn’t used to before being drafted because of that “freedom he lets us play with.”
“He trusts us to make plays out there,” Stewart said.
That success has shown up for a Rams defense that ranks third in defensive DVOA. Quarterbacks who have been pressured by Young have a 2.5 Total QBR, which ranks as the third best of any player with at least 25 pressures, according to ESPN Research. Verse has allowed a 5.8 Total QBR, which ranks 10th.
Coniglio has also tried to help his players get away from the hero ball mindset by working in those opportunities, something he calls “earned opps.” Coniglio said he will tell Verse, “‘Hey, this call, this is an out for you’ or ‘you got to play within the scheme and structure here.'”
“It’s defining those moments in time based off calls where it’s like, ‘Hey, this would be a great opp for you to go make a play.’ ‘Hey, in this place during this call, it’s probably not going to be your best opportunity,'” Coniglio said. “You got to play within the scheme of the structure here, and this may be somebody else’s opp.'”
It is that area in which McVay has seen the growth in that room.
“I’m just seeing guys understand, ‘how do I play my role to the best of my ability, but also understand the concepts and the different things that I can anticipate?'” McVay said. “‘Not necessarily guess, but anticipate to be able to make my impact for our group as a collective.'”
THIS OFFSEASON, YOUNG and Coniglio set a goal of figuring out how he could become a more consistent football player in his third year.
That started with learning to take care of his body in the offseason — led by a newfound devotion to Pilates — and “giving myself the best opportunity to be good,” Young said.
“We knew that his best moments were really, really high level in this league,” Coniglio said. “And the one thing that we wanted to do is how can we see him at his best consistently over the course of time into Week 12 into Week 13, as long as we play.”
Coniglio said he sees that when he turns on the tape on all three downs, something the pair specifically talked about during the offseason. That showed up early and often this season, as Young had at least a half sack in each of the Rams’ first seven games of the season.
“I’ve seen a consistent player,” McVay said. “I’ve seen a guy that can really understand some of the concept recognition, whether it’s the preparation throughout the course of the week and some of the normal down and distances or some of the known pass situations.”
Young has 11 sacks this season, which is tied for the seventh most in the NFL and the most by a Rams player since defensive tackle Aaron Donald had 12.5 in 2021.
Not only have Young’s sack numbers, quarterback hits and pressures improved since last season, but he’s doing it against more double-teams. According to ESPN Research, Young’s double-team percentage through 14 games has gone from 10% to 14.7%.
“He’s playing at a really high level,” Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula said. “Probably the best he’s ever played. On every single play, we ask a lot of him, and he steps up to it every single time. That group’s ascending as a whole, and he’s right there at the forefront of it.”
WHEN CONIGLIO THINKS about the bond between two of his star pass rushers, he thinks about Verse and Young “trotting around Lincoln Financial field together” before last season’s divisional round playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles. In the week leading up to the game, Verse told the Los Angeles Times that he hated Eagles fans because “they’re so annoying.”
Before the game, with the snow falling, Verse and Young took a lap around the stadium, taking in the boos from fans. Verse had two sacks in the game, a Rams loss.
“That is such a great match because I think sometimes Jared brings B.Y. [Young] out of his shell a little bit,” Coniglio said. “B.Y. is competitive, relentless, all the things you see on tape. But I think once … Jared gets going with a little bit more of an outgoing personality, he gets B.Y. going, too.
“The way that they kind of play off of each other and the relationship that those guys have, I think they bring out the best in each other.”
When Stewart is asked how he describes the relationship between Young and Verse, he smiles.
“If you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ that would be the greatest depiction,” Stewart said. “But they’re just two meatheads, and they’re always competing. And you know it comes from a point of love.”
Coniglio said he has seen the collaboration between the pair take off, as there has been “a confidence and a comfortability in our defense.”
Young describes Verse “like a brother” since they started playing together last season. And as they’ve gotten to know each other’s tendencies on the field, they’ve seen that continue to grow.
“It [is] competitive, in a fun way,” Young said. “Him getting me better; I’m getting him better, and we just working beside each other. At the end of the day, just for both of us, be the best we could be.”
