John Johnson III has only been back with the Rams for a few weeks but he’s quickly getting up to speed as the season opener approaches. He was on the field to start Saturday’s game against the Raiders and looked like the player he was from 2017-2020 with the Rams, flying around the field and making plays.
As he’s gotten acclimated to his new (but familiar) team, he’s taken notice of Quentin Lake’s play at safety. Johnson was asked after Saturday’s game about one player who’s standing out on defense and he mentioned Lake.
“I’ve been telling people Quentin Lake,” he said. “He’s been hitting people, always in the right spot. I think he’s going to be a big contributor for us.”
Lake played really well against the Raiders, making one tackle on defense and two on special teams. He was also in good coverage on the Raiders’ fourth-down attempt in the first half, which fell incomplete; that came the play after Lake made a key third-down stop on a run up the middle.
Sean McVay had some good things to say about Lake after the game, too, pointing to his toughness and versatility.
“He’s doing a great job. I think he’s got the ability to play safety. He’s done a nice job being able to play in our dime package and his versatility, his football instincts and intelligence shows up,” McVay said. “I think he’s shown great toughness in some of those covers. You look at it, he’s made a handful of plays in the kickoff coverage unit each of the last couple weeks. He’s been really productive as a safety, and I think he’s really just getting comfortable. I think people forget he was a guy that worked through a lot of stuff to be able to even get on the field towards the latter part of the year. Always been instinctual, incredibly smart, comes from a great football pedigree. I’ve been really pleased with Quentin over the last couple weeks.”
Lake is competing with Russ Yeast to be the Rams’ third safety, which will see significant playing time in dime and nickel packages. Both second-year safeties have put some good things on tape so far, which is a good problem for the Rams to have.
