Todd Gurley is gone. The Rams’ running back position will look like more of a committee approach. But every committee benefits from having a chairman, and the chairman of the Rams’ running back committee will be veteran Malcolm Brown.
“It’s been easy to fall into that role,” Brown told reporters on Monday. “I knew right when [Gurley] left, I would probably play a bigger of a role. It’s easy in that running back room because we all want to learn and we all want to get better. So there is nothing drastic that’s happened or anything like that. But, like I said, throughout training camp, we’ll see how we’ll fall into our roles and everything like that. But everybody in that room wants to learn and wants to get better and we play off of each other. It makes it so much easier.”
Brown has no qualms about the tailbacks sharing the load.
“Whatever role that these guys have us playing, man,” Brown said. “I know that all of us will buy into it, [we’ve] got a lot of different versatile guys we all have our own skillsets. I know that these coaches will do the best that they can, I know that they’ll do a really good job of putting us in position to succeed.”
So what will Brown’s role be on the field this year?
“I believe we’ll really see once we strap the pads on and get training camp rolling and things like that we’ll kind of see how things play out,” Brown said. “I know myself and my mind, what I have for myself in that running back room being the oldest guy, is to do my best to bring these young guys along. I know I’ve been in this offense longer than anybody and then with the great addition that we have with [running backs] coach Thomas Brown, just to be an extra set of eyes, be an extra example for these young guys to play off of because, like I said, obviously I’ve been in it longer than anybody in the room.”
He knows that, regardless of his own role, it’s a diverse bunch.
“In this running back room everybody can really do everything,” Brown said. “I just know Darrell [Henderson] has a lot of speed. Cam [Akers] is a guy with a lot of speed and can get on the edges and do their thing. I’m a downhill guy, but like I said, Coach McVay, he’ll have me doing the same thing Darrell is doing and Darrell’s doing the same thing as I’m doing. We’re all playing a part in doing what we can to contribute.”
Brown had a career-high 255 rushing yards last year, on 69 attempts. He added five touchdowns; in four prior seasons combined, Brown had one.