The Los Angeles Rams roster had a lot of turnover this offseason. Many key contributors from last season’s NFC West-winning team are gone. Some were directly replaced with new players – Brandin Cooks for Sammy Watkins, Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib for Trumaine Johnson and Kayvon Webster etc. – but not every departure had a correlating big splash acquisition.

The Rams will be counting on several players who were on the team last season that played limited roles to step up in a big way in 2018 to replace the ones that are no longer on the roster. Additionally, some positions – like tight end – saw no big departures after the season, but will need to have players step up and provide more production than they did last season.

Here are the three Rams who will be counted on for increased roles the most this season:

ILB Cory Littleton

Littleton is perhaps the least known of any of the three players listed here. Unlike the other two, he wasn’t a draft pick of Les Snead. He wasn’t drafted at all and was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Washington in 2016. Not many would’ve thought he’d still even be on the team at this point, let alone in line for a starting job, but that’s exactly where he is. Rams linebackers coach Joe Barry recently raved about Littleton, saying he’s “very excited” about the linebacker and that he played like a starter when he was on the field last season.

The Rams traded away Alec Ogletree and did very little to address the inside linebacker position this offseason, only signing Ramik Wilson in free agency and waiting until the fifth round to take Micah Kiser in the draft. The lack of moves suggests the Rams are confident in Littleton’s abilities, and he could very easily go from playing only 25 percent of the team’s snaps last season to being an every-down player alongside Mark Barron in 2018. Many have been projecting linebacker to be the Rams’ one weakness heading into 2018, and if Littleton can step up and man the middle effectively, he might just be the key to completing a defense that already has a dominant secondary and defensive line.