It’s often said that competition breeds success, or that iron sharpens iron. Both should ring undeniably true for the Los Angeles Rams this season when it comes to team practices. With so much talent on both sides of the ball, the offense will help the defense improve, and vice versa.

Jared Goff and Robert Woods talked about that during the Rams’ offseason workouts in the spring, mentioning Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters as guys who will help make the offense better. Goff, Woods and the rest of the aerial attack got their first good look at the revamped secondary on Thursday when players took the field for the inaugural training camp practice.

It was Talib, however, complimenting Goff after practice, calling him a “confident guy.”

“Super accurate deep balls, man. He throws deep balls and they land in the perfect spot,” Talib added. “That’s huge in the NFL. A lot of guys can’t throw deep balls, so you find a guy who is super accurate with those deep balls, you stretch the defense.”

Goff struggled to connect with Sammy Watkins on deep passes last season, but at Cal, he was great in that department. Hopefully a guy like Brandin Cooks will improve Goff’s deep-passing numbers, as is the case with Robert Woods and potentially Mike Thomas, too.

He’s going to get better in practice leading up to the regular season, as well, simply based on the fact that he’s facing two All-Pros in Talib and Peters every day.

He called them “such ball hawks, that you are thinking about it.” Goff said he tries not to worry about throwing interceptions to Talib and Peters too much in practice because he’s attempting to improve himself, but “it’s definitely got a chance to cause some issues for some teams.”

It’s their ability to succeed when freelancing that makes them so good, too, Goff says.

“I think just the way they understand route concepts and the way they understand the cornerback position,” Goff added. “They don’t just go by the book on every single play. There’s a little bit of feel here and there. That’s what makes that position and those players really good. That’s pretty standard for most good corners. They have that ability to beat you outside the box and beat you that way and those two definitely have that.”

It’s going to be a constant back-and-forth between Goff and the Rams’ stud cornerbacks throughout camp and the regular season, but it’s only going to help both sides. After all, iron sharpens iron.