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Sarah Barshop, ESPN Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — When Los Angeles Rams outside linebackers coach Joe Coniglio was watching film of the Florida State defense during the draft process, there were a few times he found his eyes wandering, checking out a different player than who he was supposed to be tracking.
The two who caught his eye? Outside linebacker Jared Verse and defensive tackle Braden Fiske, Florida State teammates who the Rams drafted in April to help fill the void left by future Hall of Fame defensive tackle Aaron Donald.
The Rams drafted Verse with the No. 19 pick in April, the first time they’d used a first-round pick since 2016. Twenty selections later, Los Angeles traded up for Fiske for the hefty price of picks Nos. 52, 155 and a 2025 second-round pick.
“I think sometimes when you’re watching Jared, you end up, your eyes transferred to Braden, and then sometimes when you’re watching Braden, your eyes transfer to Jared,” Coniglio said. “So, I think that was the cool thing, is those guys were — not only did they play off each other — but they were very impactful with their football team and the abilities that they had when they affected different games.”
Although the pair played together for just one year at Florida State, Coniglio said their familiarity on the field “shows up on the tape” when watching Florida State last season.
“I mean, it got to the point in the season where you get that head nod, just look at each other, and you knew what was coming,” Fiske said. “It just got to the point where we were just playing off each other. He’d see something I get and I’d see something he’d get, and we’d just go out there making plays.”
THE MOMENT VERSE found out that Fiske would be joining him in Los Angeles was memorable, as the team tried to time Verse’s arrival to the Rams’ draft house for his introductory press conference with the time they’d be making the pick.
And although Los Angeles traffic meant they couldn’t quite pull that off, the pair were able to talk shortly after they became teammates, again.
“This has been the easiest transition so far,” Fiske said of the changeover from college to the NFL. “And I think I can credit some of that to having some familiarity with Jared. It’s a familiar face in the building, someone to go to if you’ve got issues, someone to ride with in the morning, whatever it may be. Just little things like that.”
But while they’re really close, they joke that they’re not close enough to be roommates.
During OTAs this spring, Fiske had landed at the airport when he got a call from Verse, who had just gotten to the team hotel.
“He called me and he was like, ‘Bro, check this out,'” Fiske said. “‘We got two beds next to each other.’ I was like, ‘Ain’t no way I’m sleeping next to this.’ I don’t care how close I am to him, ain’t no way I’m sleeping next to this man for a month straight. So yeah, we [got] our own rooms.”
Verse agreed.
“He said, ‘I just can’t wake up next to you.’ I was like, ‘I feel the same way.’
FISKE SAID HE met Verse in January 2023, one of the first days he was at Florida State. Fiske played at Western Michigan from 2019 to ’22 before leaving to play at a Power 5 school.
Early on, Fiske said, “it was the natural, ‘Who’s the alpha?’ And then it just kind of became a friend thing of like, ‘Hey, we’re just going to compete and we’re going to figure out who’s going to be the guy here.”
And while they have their work ethic in common, Verse laughs when asked if Fiske shares his penchant to be vocal on the field.
“The exact opposite,” Verse said. “Fiske will have a big play and he’ll just talk to us himself. He’ll clap up and he’ll be like, ‘Yeah!’ … He’s quiet. …We’re two different [people] in that aspect.”
And while Fiske first described Verse as a “loudmouth,” he quickly added that he’s a “genuine” person as well.
“I can see the way he works and the way he gets after it. And it’s really similar to who I am. Almost identical. But it’s going to be special. It’s insane I get to go play with Verse again” said Fiske on the night he was drafted.
The day the Rams drafted Fiske, both players credited the other for pushing them to work harder because they couldn’t let the other win. In their season together at Florida State, Verse led the Seminoles with nine sacks, adding 41 tackles, including 12.5 for a loss. Fiske had six sacks with 43 tackles, including nine for a loss. Both started all 13 games last season.
“It just kind of made us better in the year. I think we were both going into our final years of college and it was kind of like, how much better can we get? And I think we took it to levels that neither of us knew we could reach.”
AS THE RAMS started training camp — and especially when they started padded practices — the Verse and Fiske friendship and familiarity showed up on the field, in the same way it did to Coniglio and Snead while watching film of last season’s Florida State defense. That comfort, Rams coach Sean McVay said, shows up when they rush together.
“I think what you saw a lot when they were at Florida State is just the comfort where you could see they had a little bit of ownership and autonomy, especially in the known pass situations to be able to play off of one another with some of the two-man games,” McVay said. “They attracted a lot of attention. That showed up at different parts of the offseason and different parts of training camp when they’ve been able to be on the same side, but they still are playing within the structure and the framework of what we’re trying to get done with all eleven [players].
“There’s kind of that unspoken agreement. I’ve heard them both kind of talk about that nonverbal communication, that rapport that’s established. [It’s] no different than a quarterback [and] receiver or a guard and center or guard and tackle. It’s been pretty fun to watch those guys continue to grow … [there is] a lot of work to be done as well.”
The hopes are high as both defensive linemen head into the upcoming season, “I think once you can get them comfortable in the techniques and their assignments, you can just kind of let them go play free and fast,” Coniglio said.
Neither Verse nor Fiske are expected to play in the preseason, as McVay chooses not to play the majority of Rams starters or key players. But during practices — particularly the Rams’ joint practices against the Dallas Cowboys — the pair has been doing “exactly what we saw at Florida State,” defensive coordinator Chris Shula said.
“They just got a great vibe about them,” Coniglio said. “When they’re out there on the field, you feel like there’s a great comfortability just in regards to the communication, the way that they go about their business. You can tell that they’ve done it before together. So I think the coolest thing is those guys just having the ability to trust each other. They know one another and then that comes to life on the field.