[AltiTude Ram]

[AltiTude Ram]

Looks to be a Jordan Fuller upgrade.

The deal is worth “up to” $13 million. A 2020 seventh-rounder still only 25 later this month, Curl was an every-down player for the majority of his rookie contract. He has quietly developed into one of the league’s better safeties, and he could still have room to grow in a Rams defense led by Aaron Donald that is always intelligently coached.

[Elvis]

Rams paying a safety, you just never know...

[Zen_Ronin]

Damn, this might be a low key, sneaky good signing!

[69RamFan]

Kamren Curl:
6-2 200lbs

2023: Had 115 comb tackle,
So, he is not afraid to tackle.

Looks like a good fit.

[Will0120]

Damn, this might be a low key, sneaky good signing!

In the middle clip, I keep seeing him tackling with his head down. I am worried about him injuring himself severely keep on tackling that way...

[Dare]

This is another really good signing of a young player on the rise. He can cover and most of all tackle which was a huge problem in the secondary. He's got excellent length and decent speed for his length.

Lake and Curl should make a very good starting safety duo and paired with Durant and Williams that is a good starting base secondary. Shelley has played well on other teams as a good SCB so that gives them a very good nickel secondary.

[Flash]

Yep stud vs the run!

[AltiTude Ram]

[/zn/]

Why Kamren Curl is the Washington Commanders’ most important defensive player

https://www.pff.com/news/why-kamren-cur ... ive-player

The NFL draft is largely unpredictable in most aspects, and that applies to every round. Teams never really know how good — or bad — a player will be at the next level.

But while success in the league typically gets harder to achieve the later a player is picked, there are still plenty of examples of draftees severely outperforming their draft slots. Washington Commanders’ safety Kamren Curl is near the top of that list.

The then-Washington Football Team selected Curl in the seventh round of the 2020 NFL Draft. Since then, he has done nothing but prove everyone wrong. He’s played at least 700 snaps in each of his first three years, all while finishing as a top-30 safety by PFF grade each year. In 2022, he earned the second-highest grade at the position in the NFL and was the only safety to earn at least an 80.0 PFF grade in run defense, tackling and coverage.

It turned out to be harder to find an advanced statistic that Curl didn’t place in the top 10 in.

Advanced Statistic Stat (rank/eligible players)
Missed Tackle Rate 4.7% (T-6th/69)
Average Depth of Tackle 3.9 (2nd/64)
Run-Stop Rate 5.7% (4th/64)
Man Coverage Grade 75.7 (2nd/65)
Zone Coverage Grade 74.5 (9th/65)

Curl is now not only one of the best all-around safeties in the NFL but also one of Washington’s most important players. When he’s not on the field, the defense isn’t nearly the same. He was forced to miss the first two weeks and the last four weeks of the 2022 season with injuries, and Washington’s defense struggled mightily.


With Curl (W3-15) Without Curl (W1,2,16,17)
EPA per play (rank) -0.061 (7th) 0.058 (29th)
Scoring Drive Allowed % (rank) 28.9% (3rd) 46.8% (30th)
Successful Play Allowed % (rank) 31.8% (5th) 34.3% (17th)

*Note: Week 18 was omitted due to it being a backup-heavy, meaningless game between Washington and Dallas.

Curl showed in his first regular-season action as a rookie that he was going to be at and around the line of scrimmage making plays.



Tackling, in particular, was a significant area of improvement for Curl in 2022. He made a massive jump from his rookie season to his third year in limiting his missed tackles and went from ranking in the top 10 in most missed tackles as a rookie to the top 10 in fewest missed tackles this past season.

As a rookie, Curl displayed veteran-like tendencies in terms of always knowing where to be. He just needed to focus on finishing the plays. And last year, he did.

His continued improvement in man coverage also stands out. Much like Curl’s missed tackle rate, his man coverage grade was a different beast in his rookie season compared to this past season. He went from being a middle-of-the-pack man coverage defender to one of the NFL’s best.

Curl had shown some flashes but lacked the consistency needed to play in the slot as much as he did.



That changed this past year when he finished with the second-highest man coverage grade among safeties. He’s taken two weaknesses in his game and turned them into strengths, all of a sudden spearheading a Washington defense that has been one of the NFL’s best over the past couple of seasons.

Curl’s biggest strength has always been his ability to not only play multiple positions but excel in those positions.



He plays everywhere for Washington, which allows the defense to give offenses multiple looks without a drop-off in the quality of play. The coaching staff knows he can excel in every coverage role they ask of him while also not losing any strength in the run game. Despite his frame, he’s never been afraid to throw his body around at the line of scrimmage.

Take a look at this play from Curl’s rookie season. The angle doesn’t do it justice, but he tracks the running back through three separate gaps to eventually make the tackle. It’s an incredible display of patience to not shoot the gap too early. He starts by covering the strongside A-gap, then moves to the weakside A-gap and finally makes the play in the weakside B-gap.

Washington’s strength has always been its defensive line. Jonathan Allen has been one of the most dominant defensive tackles in the NFL for multiple seasons now. Daron Payne and Montez Sweat are both coming off their most productive seasons, and a healthy Chase Young, who won Defensive Rookie of the Year in his last full season, is back in the fold. That’s four first-round picks starting on one position unit. But despite all of that firepower up front, the most important member of that defense is arguably the former seventh-round draft pick Curl.

He’s up for a contract extension after this season, and while Washington has shown it isn’t afraid to pay its homegrown defensive talent, it’s time to retain Curl for the long haul.