A few days ago after spending another exhausting two hours in the broiling St. Louis heat, defensive end Leonard Little came bouncing off the practice field grinning like a man aching to reveal a delicious secret.

"Man I'm tellin' you this is the fastest defense I've ever been on in my life," he said in a voice barely above a whisper. His eyes kept darting back and forth, almost like he was afraid someone might overhear him and discover this precious tidbit. "I'm tellin' you, man, it's different around here. Real different."


I'm excited, really excited," said Hargrove, 6 feet 3 and 282 pounds. "I don't think you could've brought together a better defense. The personalities, the character, the love for the game, it's all there. It's going to make a big difference."

"Let's just say that it's a whole new look for us with Haslett calling the shots," said Anthony Hargrove, the high-motor third-year defensive end. "This is a man who understands personnel."

As Hargrove spoke, he would cut his eyes over to Little and they both just nodded their heads in unison and had sly grins spreading across their faces.

"All I'm going to say is that it's going to be a world of difference around here on the defense," Little said.

The defense has been the bit player in the Greatest Show on Turf, a warm-up act to the flashy offense. But that has to change now. The success of the season hinges on whether this defense can stop somebody or if it will continue to be a sorry doormat.

"It can happen, and it can happen very quickly," said Little with a reassuring smile. "I'm not being overly optimistic, either. I'm being as honest as I can be. We can turn this thing around dramatically, because we've done it before. Remember how bad we were the year before Lovie (Smith) came here? Go back and check it out, we were horrible (the defense gave up a team record 471 points allowed in 2000). But Lovie's first year here as defensive coordinator what did we do?"

They gave up only 273 points, to rank 7th in the NFL, and the Rams were 14-2 and reached the Super Bowl.

"It can happen again," Little said.

Wroten is a beast. I had to see it myself, but it's true. I recall one play when he pushed Terrell into the hole(1st team), and single-handedly stopped jacksons dive run.


Es wird immer besser.....