The Los Angeles Rams have tons of both firepower and star power along their defensive front. Obviously, Myles Garrett is the biggest star of the group, and you’d expect nothing less from the best defensive player in the NFL. Byron Young is generating plenty of hype at the other edge spot. Kobie Turner is a productive piece and Braden Fiske can still be a big contributor for this group.
But while he might not be the biggest name or the flashiest on the stat sheet, don’t forget about Poona Ford plugging up the middle of the line.
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Ford has been a steady contributor throughout his career, which is about to enter Year 9 and his second with the Rams. Folks that get into the nitty gritty of the game, the folks who binge tape, who appreciate the guys who do the dirty work, those are the types that love what Ford brings to the table.
He’s never been much of a pass rusher, considering he’s compiled 13.5 career sacks over 118 career games (although, as seen above, it’s not like he’s incapable of getting after the quarterback). But there are few interior run defenders in the NFL better than him. One stat that really fleshes out how impactful Ford is in that regard is stops, something tracked by NFL Pro/Next Gen Stats.
Generally speaking, we associate the word “stop” in football with tackles, and that’s fine for off-the-cuff references. As far as NFL Pro statting goes, though, stops are defined as “Tackles that result in a successful play for the defense (negative EPA).”
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Last season, Ford only played 45% of the Rams’ defensive stats and didn’t qualify for statistical leaderboards. However, he finished with 38 stops, which was tied for the most among Rams defensive linemen with Turner while Ford played 242 fewer snaps, and it would have been tied for 25th among all NFL defensive linemen if he had qualified.
Here’s another way to look at it from an efficiency perspective: Those 38 stops for Ford came on just 220 snaps against the run in 2025. That’s a 17.2% stop rate against the run. Of the top 25 qualified defensive linemen in total stops, only nine finished with a higher stop rate than Ford did: Cameron Heyward, Jordan Davis, Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy, Jeffrey Simmons, Will Anderson Jr., Quinnen Williams, Tommy Togiai and Danielle Hunter.
That’s a list jam-packed with All-Pros and superstars, and against the run Poona Ford was just as good as any of them.
That skill set bolsters the reasoning behind why the Rams are not just a pass-rush factory up front, they’re a legitimately well-rounded group. The edge rushers will clearly get a majority of the attention, and that’s deserved, but this group looks, at least today, like it should be stellar against the run, too (for what it’s worth, Garrett’s run stop rate was 16.6% in 2025, Turner’s was 14.4%). There’s an old saying that you have to earn the right to rush the passer, meaning that if you can’t stop the run you won’t get a chance to release those sack artists. Ford is a big reason why that shouldn’t be an issue for L.A. in 2026.
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When you have one of the most efficient, and frankly best, run-stopping defensive linemen in the NFL as a rotational piece off your bench, you’re in a great spot. Poona Ford may not be a superstar or even a household name to average fans, but he’s an undeniably crucial piece to the Rams’ defensive plan.
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