In a little more than a week on “Monday Night Football,” the Rams will don their new “Fearsome White” uniforms, which honor the era of the team’s legendary Fearsome Foursome defensive line of the late 1960s and ‘70s.
After a season-opening performance more fragile than fearsome, the Rams’ defensive front has work to do if it aims to compare.
It’ll have to do it without Myles Garrett, a two-time NFL defensive player of the year, who reportedly will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his left knee and will be placed on injured reserve, meaning he’ll miss at least the next four games.
A unit that featured edge rushers Garrett and Byron Young and linemen Kobie Turner and Braden Fiske seemingly had all the makings of an elite group. And that was before Aaron Donald came out of retirement to join a team favored to win Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium.
Young was voted to the Pro Bowl last season after recording 12 sacks.
Turner entered a contract year coming off a 2025 performance that featured seven sacks.
And Fiske finally was healthy after playing through a knee injury that slowed him last season.
But after a humiliating, season-opening defeat by the San Francisco 49ers in Australia — Donald did not make the trip — expectations were thrown for a loss.
The vaunted front was nearly invisible. The Rams hit 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy a grand total of two times. They had zero sacks.
Purdy passed for three touchdowns, including a 39-yard strike after dropping back with no pressure.
Garrett looked nothing like the intimidator who piled up 125½ sacks in nine seasons with the Cleveland Browns, including an NFL-record 23 last season.
A knee injury that sidelined Garrett for most of training camp and preseason practices had to be a major concern for coach Sean McVay and defensive coordinator Chris Shula going into the 49ers game.
It was certainly on Garrett’s mind.
The seven-time All-Pro played 40 of 65 snaps. For only the fourth time in his career, Garrett did not make a tackle. Afterward, he acknowledged that at times he was more focused on trying to stay healthy than on what the 49ers were doing. He said it was “the worst version of myself that I’ve put out there” and that he was intent on making sure he would be better.
Turner made seven tackles, Fiske two. Young, who was limited during training camp and the preseason because of a lingering knee injury, made one.
Reserve Tyler Davis had seven tackles, Josaiah Stewart six tackles and one quarterback hit.
But the Rams were largely ineffective front to back. That should fuel optimism for opponents who spent the offseason watching the Rams assemble what appeared to be a super team.
The 49ers rushed for 174 yards. With the Rams’ line unable to pressure Purdy, the remade secondary gave up touchdown passes. Safety Quentin Lake’s interception was the lone defensive highlight.
McVay has more to fix than the defense. A team that led the NFL in offense and scoring last season scored only one touchdown. And the kickoff-coverage unit gave up a 45-yard return that set up a touchdown.
Donald could play for the first time since 2023 in the next game, the Rams’ primetime home opener against the New York Giants, which would provide a spark to a front in need of a confidence boost.
Regardless, the Rams will spend this week moving on from their embarrassing loss.
“It’s going to be something that’s good for us to look at and understand how teams going forward are going to try to stop our rush,” Turner said, “So we can attack that head-on and we can figure out what’s our solution, how do we just play fast.”
Fearsomely fast.
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