McCollough's presence in the middle of the defense caused confusion at the line and gave the Rams single-coverage advantages with defensive backs across the board. Even if Saints quarterback Tyler Shough was given time to throw, there would have been nowhere for him to go with the ball.
"The advantage of doing that from a defensive perspective is now we're on the attack," said safety Quentin Lake. "I think it's really good for us because we have such a good rush and you want to get those guys a lot of the times in one-on-one situations and then bring an extra cover guy in when you know it's passing situations."
The Rams' 34.6% dime personnel rate leads the league by a considerable margin, according to Next Gen Stats. It allows them to generate favorable coverage matchups, with McCollough as the extra defensive back, and defensive coordinator Chris Shula combines that with distinct pre-snap looks to make quarterbacks hesitate in obvious passing situations.
"It's been our calling card," McCollough said. "It's been our advantage, I like to say."
The Rams' 5.5 yards per play allowed with that personnel grouping is the third-fewest among teams with at least 25 snaps – the Rams have 177, according to Next Gen Stats. Meanwhile, three teams haven't rolled out a single dime package this season, and a total of 13 teams run it less than 5% of the time, which shows just how much of an anomaly this Rams defense truly is.
It helps that L.A. has forced the most third-and-longs per game (7.4), according to nflverse data, which has given them ample opportunity to bring an extra defensive back onto the field. They already use nickel personnel (five defensive backs) nearly half the time, so throwing McCollough in adds yet another wrinkle for offenses to deal with.
L.A.'s safety depth and versatility contribute to their success in dime. McCollough, Lake, Kam Kinchens and Kam Curl are all chess pieces that can be moved around to fit each play's purpose, giving Shula the resources to creates a variety of looks within the dime package and stay unpredictable.
"You don't want to be in it so limited that you're playing the same thing every single time with the coverage variation and things like that, so we want to be able to play a lot of stuff out of dime, and Tank allows us to do that," Shula said.
On 4th-and-4 with just over five minutes remaining against New Orleans, the Rams showed a six-man front with six defensive backs on the field and one deep safety in the middle. When the ball was snapped, two rushers on the left side dropped back and L.A. brought four, including Curl, again creating one-on-one matchups with simulated pressure.
This time, McCollough lined up 12 yards deep down the seam and then jumped forward to cover the underneath zone. He took away Shough's first read, Taysom Hill on a short in-cut, as pressure forced the rookie quarterback up in the pocket. His off-platform throw to an improvising receiver was intercepted easily by cornerback Emmanuel Forbes Jr. for his first as a Ram, and Los Angeles iced the game from there.