LOS ANGELES — When the Rams file off the field following pregame warmups, or head to the locker room at the start of halftime, Jared Verse is always the last to leave the bench.
It’s a practice he started when he was an underclassman at Albany. He can take in the scene, feel grounded on the field by himself for a moment. But it’s also an instinct born of having three younger siblings, and perhaps why the act sometimes extended to parties during college.
“My brother’s keeper,” Verse explained. “I don’t know what it is, it’s just something that I naturally started doing, make sure everybody gets in. I like to make sure we’re all taken care of and then I’ll follow everyone in.”
But midway through Verse’s rookie season in 2024, one of his fellow outside linebackers began lingering with him. Byron Young joined him in silent reflection on the benches, on the slow walk off the playing surface and into the tunnel of the stadium.
It wasn’t something either felt the need to discuss. It just became a new ritual in a relationship filled with them.
“He just started doing it with me. I think it’s because he don’t trust me,” Verse cracked. “He challenges me in every aspect, he makes sure I’m good. Some days I don’t want to follow my own traditions, he makes sure I follow them. He says, ‘Hey, you set a standard, you have to do this.’”
Since Verse was drafted in 2024 one year after Young, the two have been inseparable, bound together by rituals like this and a maniacal competitiveness that colors their every interaction, and have helped uplift a Rams’ defense ahead of Sunday’s divisional round matchup with the Chicago Bears.
“They’re like stepbrothers. They love each other. They’re poking at each other, but they bring out the best in one another,” head coach Sean McVay said. “Two guys that have great personalities that balance each other out, that have a lot of love for one another and really celebrate each other’s successes.”
Poke the bear
“Hey B.Y., Jared told me to show you this.”
It was May 2024, prior to Verse’s first practice with the team after being drafted by the Rams with what was their first first-round pick since 2016. The night after his selection, Verse met Young and Kobie Turner at an event held by the team. He was a little star-struck that day given he had watched Young and Turner from a distance during his final season at Florida State.
But now that Verse was preparing to put his white practice jersey for the first time, that was over. So while Young was relaxing in the outside linebackers’ meeting room while position coach Joe Coniglio met with rookies, Verse was telling Coniglio to show Young tape of the new guy beating Young’s get-off time.
“I’m acting like I’m ignoring him,” Young said of when Verse reached the room. “So I’m looking, seeing that he got off faster than me. I’m not saying nothing. I said, ‘OK, it’s gonna be that type of thing.’”
For those that know them, this story tracks. Verse is a talker, and a loud one at that, heard clearly from one side of the locker room or across the practice field. Young is more inward, stoic, but ready to get a good dig in when it’s called for.
Since then, Verse has needled Young by saying, “I got the fastest get off in the wild, wild west.” And that’s just one of a litany of things on and off the field that the two bicker over.
If you need any confirmation, just ask one of their teammates to name the dumbest thing they’ve seen Verse and Young argue about.
“The dumbest thing?” Turner asked, staring off into space as he reviewed the mental tape.
“It’s a lot bro,” rookie outside linebacker Josaiah Stewart said after a hearty laugh.
Perhaps it’s over in-practice sled drills, in which pass rushers compete to see who can lift the bag the fastest. Except that both Verse and Young are known to jump the gun to ensure their own victory.
“They’re both some cheaters at it,” Stewart said. “They both know it and they still argue of who won and who lost, both knowing that they both cheated. They argue about everything. But that’s probably the most consistent argument, for sure, is that damn sled.”
Or teasing each other about who has to drop into coverage during practice while the other rushes the passer.
“They’ll argue about it all the time,” Young said. “B.Y. has to drop, Verse will be giving him crap for having to drop when it’s written into the call that he has to drop. Or if Verse has to drop, then B.Y. is over there talking smack to him saying get to the other side.”
Asked this question, Young was soon lost in contemplation. “The dumbest thing is just,” he began before interrupting himself. “I’m not going to say that.”
Verse too needed time to think about his response, before settling on a position meeting this season. Verse’s desk is in front of Young’s in the room, and one day when Verse leaned back his hood allegedly dragged across Young’s desktop, an accusation that Verse still denies.
When Young relocated the hood, Verse took offense and told him not to touch him.
“We started going back and forth, he was like, ‘Nobody was touching you.’ I got up, he got up and we started wrestling,” Verse recounted. “But we wrestle all the time so Coach [Coniglio] thought we was just playing around. But we were real deal, I lifted him up, he lifted me up. We were about to actually go at it. We didn’t talk to each other for like two days. I think it was like a buildup where we just wasn’t messing with each other.”
It might boil over sometimes, but that competitiveness is what Verse and Young use to push each other, and to push their position group as they took over as the leaders of the room this spring.
“They make everybody else better on their own just by how hard they compete with each other,” Stewart said.
Down to business
When it comes down to Sundays, Verse and Young are competing with each other, not against. But even that means still pushing each other forward.
This year, that meant a team-high 12 sacks for Young and eight for Verse. The two have combined for 144 total quarterback pressures with identical win percentage rates of 16.8%, per Pro Football Focus.
“That’s the competition. It makes, oh yeah, I gotta lock in, I gotta get off faster,” Young said. “It’s a friendly, healthy competition that makes the whole team better. Because we’re on the same page and we’re trying to get there. And when he beats me, good job Jared, I got you next time. Every time we give our full-blown effort.”
The two are happy celebrate each other, too. They have their handshake, and last season both would flash two thumbs down after a sack, a move inspired by the release of Gladiator II that fall.
When the duo was named to the Pro Bowl in December – Verse’s second selection, Young’s first – Young was in the weight room getting a workout in. McVay informed him, then Young ran out onto the field where Verse was exercising to celebrate, falling into a hug that Verse jokingly called “a little weird,” declining to elaborate.
“It was something you can’t fake,” McVay said. “They’re able to share that experience and those shared experiences are what life’s about. It’s why we’re not meant to do this alone.”
But they’re beside each other in the quieter moments, too, like an extra minute on the bench or a long walk to the locker room.
“It makes you feel untouchable, especially when you have a brother like that, you’re not worried about anything,” Verse said. “He’s always the first person to make sure he has my back and I love it.”