St. Louis Rams helmet during warm ups before the first quarter against the Arizona Cardinals. Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

The St. Louis Rams secondary was an absolute disaster this past season, and guys like Cortland Finnegan, who is fully expected to be released from his unfavorable contract, regressed into horrible years. While the Rams could use some better players in the defensive backfield, the fact of the matter is that the Rams defense shouldn’t have been this bad with guys like Robert Quinn, Chris Long, Michael Brockers, and Alec Ogeltree (just to name four) in the front seven.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s excellent Jim Thomas, the Rams have decided to fire defensive coordinator Tim Walton, and the news definitely doesn’t come as a surprise. Rams fans are certainly happy with the move, and it will be interesting to see who the Rams hire as their next DC. They haven’t had a consistent DC situation in quite some time, so they’ll have to make a solid hire this time around. Jeff Fisher is a solid head coach and one of the best defensive minds in the NFL, so they don’t need a home-run hire at DC by any means.

Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer has never been a fan favorite (not with the New York Jets or Rams), but he’s definitely safe, unless if he somehow gets hired by the Cleveland Browns.

Again, Walton’s firing comes as no surprise, and he was hired to help the Rams secondary. 2013 was his first season as the team’s DC, and the Rams defense got worse; he was never going to be retained.

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