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Rams rookies Jared Verse and Braden Fiske bonded by competition

September 6, 2024

In January of 2023, Jared Verse walked out to Florida State’s practice facility with a group of teammates. Dripping in sweat from their session in the weight room, they were set to do some field drills and work on pass rush moves.

Already on the field, his shirt also soaking wet, was a new teammate who had just transferred into the program. A shoulder surgery had him in a sling, but he was still working on a one-armed cross chop.

For Verse, a gym rat who himself had offseason surgery a year ago after transferring to FSU and had to sit out winter workouts, this raised his antenna. But there was still a shadow of a doubt in his mind.

“Whenever you go to a new place, you always want to show them your work ethic. So I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s just trying to show us what he’s about,’” Verse said. “And as time went on, I was like, ‘Oh, this is just who this guy is.’”

That new teammate was Braden Fiske, and those early workouts were the beginning of a genuine respect and close friendship that seemed poised to end after one season together. But as fate would have it, the Rams had different plans, drafting both the outside linebacker Verse and the defensive tackle Fiske with their first two picks in April’s draft.

The organization bet on Verse and Fiske’s work ethic and chemistry to lead them into their post-Aaron Donald future. In Sunday’s season opener against the Detroit Lions, the pair will have a primetime opportunity to show the world what the Rams saw in them.

Anything you can do

Verse’s newfound respect for Fiske’s work ethic in Tallahassee quickly morphed into a competitive instinct that infected both pass rushers.

How much weight did he bench press? How many reps did he do? How long was he in the cold tub? When the team ran sprints to atone for penalties, Fiske looked for Verse in the line and, without fail, the pair finished each heat hip and hip. It didn’t have to be about football. Verse liked to talk about how he could beat Fiske in basketball, not a terribly impressive brag given that Fiske never played the sport competitively.

Even into November, with Florida State chasing an ACC title, the pair were trying to one-up each other’s personal records in the weight room instead of taking it easy on themselves late in the year.

“My biggest challenge especially during the season was to keep them from killing each other,” Florida State strength coach Josh Storms said, “because there was no end to how far they would push each other.”

And yet, Storms always assigned Verse and Fiske to the same rack, or next to each other. Because as they pushed each other, they set an example for their teammates around them. And as they pushed each other, they each got better.

“Something I learned in this game is you got to find people like-minded, and when you find people like-minded you’re able to do great things because it’s somebody that pushes you and it’s competitive,” Fiske said.

Despite that competition, it never came at the sake of the on-field product.

As they pushed each other to stay in the Seminoles’ practice facility longer and longer, eventually they came to watch film together late into the evenings. While breaking down opposing offenses, they came up with game plans of how they could get each other opportunities at the quarterback. They were willing to take turns absorbing double-teams to allow the other a one-on-one opportunity.

It was this chemistry that would jump off the tape when the Rams studied the duo ahead of the draft.

“It’s like a marriage, there’s give and take to everything and you gotta learn to compromise and you gotta learn when your opps are,” Rams defensive line coach Giff Smith said. “And that’s when you really come together. It has to be in unison and you have to be able to play off each other and you have to be willing to do the dirty work sometimes so the other guy has his opps.”

Perhaps marriage is a good metaphor for the pair, considering how they can bicker.

Florida State’s Jared Verse, right, and Braden Fiske react after a sack against Louisville in the ACC Championship on Dec. 2, 2023, in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Isaiah Vazquez/Getty Images)

‘Yin and yang’

To be clear, Fiske and Verse have more in common than not, right down to their backgrounds.

Fiske is the son of steel mill worker and a nurse. He grew up watching his parents work long, odd hours with no days off. He learned that people depend on you to show up to work, and that you owe it to them to do so with full effort.

“That’s where I feel the best at the end of the day when I lay down in bed,” Fiske said. “Like, ‘All right, I put in a complete day of work, I checked all the boxes whether that was for the film, the weight room, the training room, taking care of my body, eating right, sleeping right.’ Just making sure all the boxes are checked.”

Verse’s father is a former Marine who started working night shifts as an engineer following his service. His mother did marketing for hospitals, and the family moved around often as she climbed her profession’s ladder.

They worked long hours, but Verse noted how his mother made time for his football games, or any of his five siblings’ activities. And while his father slept during the day, he always woke up in time to make sure there was food ready when the kids got home from school.

“That kind of dedication just to be in your kids’ lives and help them be better versions of the themselves,” Verse said, “it would be almost disrespectful to them to not show my full capabilities.”

Out of high school, both had to earn their way up the collegiate ranks. Fiske started at Western Michigan, while Verse could only get an opportunity at Division II Albany.

They didn’t necessarily have all the physical tools they needed to earn a Power 5 scholarship out of high school. But they had something else.

“I’ve seen some people with all the potential in the world fizzle out because they didn’t put in the work,” Verse said. “And I didn’t always have that. I wasn’t the fastest, I wasn’t the strongest, any of that, but if I put in the work, I can pass all those people just from my work ethic. I believe that work beats anything; talent, your abilities, anything like that.”

For all those similarities, as you speak with Verse and Fiske, they seem like the type of pairing you’d find in a buddy cop comedy.

Fiske is all midwestern, stoic and observant. Rams head coach Sean McVay compares his demeanor, focus and concentration to Donald’s. Verse is just as locked into the details, but his mouth is always running. He can be heard from the sidelines of the Rams practice field, telling teammates how he can beat them at any given activity.

“It’s like a yin and yang,” McVay said. “I think there’s a good balance because that’s authentically who they each are. Sometimes you have to tell Jared, ‘Hey man, be quiet, get in the huddle and play the next snap.’ Braden is just kind of just taking it in.”

At first, Fiske was taken aback by Verse’s verbosity. Soon, it became part of the routine.

“I got so used to it, I was like, get the hell away from me,” Fiske joked. “It’s not so much what’s said, it’s the amount that’s said. It’s just constant. It’s just like, ‘Jared, we get it, you won. All right, cool.’”

Reunited

There’s a certain cruelty in meeting a friend too late in life, not getting the chance to spend more time together. That was the most likely scenario when Fiske transferred to Florida State in the final year of his and Verse’s collegiate careers. They got their year together, and then would go onto the NFL and the life lottery of the draft.

This reality didn’t sink in for Verse until after Florida State’s triumph in the ACC championship game, a result punctuated by a fourth-down sack by Fiske that allowed the Seminoles into the victory formation.

“I didn’t even think about the fact that me and him were possibly going to go to different teams, which was a high possibility until the last game, until that play, everybody’s celebrating on the field,” Verse said. “The flight home, I’m like, ‘Damn. That could have been one of my last times with him.’ That was the first time it hit me.”

But then came the phone call from Rams general manager Les Snead to Fiske that changed everything. The pause in Fiske’s voice when he realizes what team is calling him, and what that means. The shrieking, uncontrollable excitement from Verse when McVay tells him who’s on the other end of the phone call. The tears in Fiske’s eyes when Verse is given the phone.

Who’s cutting onions? pic.twitter.com/fj3RZaH63Z

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) April 27, 2024

On the opposite side of the country, Storms was at a Florida State softball game with other members of the football staff. As they watched the game, they had ESPN playing on their phones, waiting to see where their Seminoles were going in the draft.

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Apparently, they weren’t the only ones, because when the Rams selected Fiske, a ripple went through the crowd as fans realized the two defensive standouts were reunited.

“For fans, it’s cool, two of our guys went to the same team,” Storms said. “But for those of us on the inside of the program here that had watched those two bond together, the friendship they built, when you saw the Rams take both those guys, that’s special. You’re not just getting two great players, but the way they are together, that can have a giant, giant impact if they can both get off to a strong start to their careers, that can really shape what that defense can become for years to come from now simply because of who those two are when they’re together.”

Orange County Register

News Details

Rams rookies Jared Verse and Braden Fiske bonded by competition

Anything you can do

‘Yin and yang’

Reunited

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