The Washington Redskins scouting staff was deep into their 2016 draft process when they looped in defensive coordinator Joe Barry. They wanted him to take a deep dive into a handful of defensive players, among them University of Washington linebacker Travis Feeney, who they were zeroing in on as a potential mid- to late-round pick.
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Barry gathered all the necessary information on Fenney, told the Redskins scouts he would soon have a full report and then retreated to his office to begin the process of scouring game tape of the Huskies linebacker.
It’s a painstaking, tedious and time-consuming process, but it’s also necessary in building a quality draft board. Sometimes it yields a surprise or two.
The more Barry tried to focus on Feeney, the more a Washington linebacker wearing No. 42 kept popping onto the screen to catch Barry’s attention.
Long, lean and wiry at 6-foot-3 and a little over 200 pounds, Cory Littleton looked more like a wide receiver than a linebacker. Based solely on his build, it was no surprise Littleton was considered a marginal NFL prospect at the time. Bottom line, he didn’t check off all the customary height and weight measurements to play linebacker, wasn’t stout and massive enough to play defensive end and didn’t have the necessary speed to play safety.
Littleton was, as old-time scouts like to say, the dreaded tweener.
It’s a stigma that has followed him almost since the moment he laced up a pair of cleats and put on a helmet. And it’s the reason why he was a marginally recruited high school player out of San Diego and why he had minimal buzz as a draft prospect in college.
In high school, Littleton was an undersized defensive end, which did him no favors in college scouting circles as he didn’t project at that position at the next level. Washington ultimately offered him a scholarship, and while he quickly made his way onto the field, the Huskies moved him around from position to position over his four years, making it difficult for the NFL to get a handle on him.
Ironically, while his body type and measurements and all the position shuffling conspired against him before reaching the NFL, all of those factors served as a blessing in disguise. In fact, it helped shape him as a prototypical inside linebacker in today’s NFL.
Littleton, in his first year as the Rams’ starting MIKE linebacker, is a speedy, explosive athlete who is able to physically take on and fight off offensive linemen to make tackles in run support. He also can match up with running backs and tight ends in pass coverage.
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None of that success might have materialized had Littleton not been shuffled back and forth between a handful of positions between high school and college and, out of survival, forced him to compete. As a lightweight defensive end or edge rusher, he dueled with much bigger offensive tackles. As an inside linebacker, he crashed into offensive guards to stop the run and found himself isolated in pass coverage against speedy running backs.
With survival being the only option, Littleton had no choice but to figure out how to win individual battles.
“If you go back to him playing at Washington, he actually played some outside linebacker at the line of scrimmage,” said Barry, now the Rams’ assistant head coach and linebackers coach. “And when you’re an at the line of scrimmage player at outside linebacker, you’re taking on tight ends and offensive tackles every play. And in his case, he was taking on guys that were bigger men simply because of the position he was playing.
“But I think it helped him learn how to use his hands well, how to use leverage. How to be combative and be able to get off blocks just because of the position he was playing.”
“It is kind of ironic looking back,” Littleton told The Athletic. “But it’s football experience you can’t take away. There’s a lot of guys that go from safety down to linebacker. I went from defensive line to linebacker. And those subtle things that you just naturally acquire, it definitely helps a lot.”
Just over halfway through his first year as a full-time starter, Littleton leads the Rams with 84 tackles and has been a powerful and steady defender in pass coverage. He also has three sacks and an interception.
“I don’t know that any linebacker is playing as well as he is in both areas,” Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips said.
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Littleton also has remained true to his special teams roots — the lifeline the Rams threw him after signing him as an undrafted free agent in 2016. He took full advantage of the opportunity, emerging as one of the NFL’s best all-around special teams players the next two seasons.
Starting linebacker or not, Littleton still insists on playing special teams. He has blocked two punts this year — he has four punt blocks the last two seasons — so the Rams aren’t about to argue.
“This is a guy who plays every defensive snap, calls our defense and plays special teams,” Rams defensive tackle Michael Brockers told The Athletic. “I mean, that’s incredible. I give him so much credit.”
Based on his production, Littleton has shown he is an ideal fit in today’s NFL. But no one really saw this coming three years ago when he was barely a blip on anyone’s draft radar.
And yet, there was Barry, holed up in his Redskins’ office trying to focus on Feeney, only to have Littleton steal the show while flashing a skill set Barry felt was perfect for the NFL.
“He just kept making plays,” Barry said.
Finally, about an hour into the film study, Barry marched over to the Redskins’ scouting department.
“I’m watching this linebacker at Washington you asked me to look at,” Barry recalled telling them. “But I’ve got a question for you. Who in the hell is this No. 42 kid playing on the other side of him?”
Barry has been hooked on Littleton ever since.
“You know, every year in the draft every coach has a guy they fall in love with. And that year I happened to fall in love with Cory,” Barry said. “And I was fighting [on the Redskins] to draft him, when we got to the third day of the draft — the fifth, sixth, and seventh rounds Every time we were up, I was like, ‘What about that Littleton kid at Washington? Let’s take him.’ But it fell on deaf ears.”
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As fate would have it, the Redskins not heeding Barry’s advice and the Rams eventually signing Littleton as a free agent would mean Barry and Littleton’s worlds finally lining up. When Sean McVay was hired as Rams head coach last year, he brought Barry, his former Redskins coaching mate, with him to Los Angeles.
And when Barry got to L.A., there was Littleton, whose willingness to submerge himself into special teams won him a spot with the Rams as a rookie in 2016.
It’s the hard-luck route by which some players stick on a 53-man roster, and as an undrafted free agent, Littleton was shrewd enough to understand it was the only real card he had to play.
Eventually, special teams became the stage Littleton would showcase his playmaking ability.
“I mean it was my first excitement coming into this league. It was my main role,” he said. “It’s something that, honestly, most people don’t like doing but it grew on me.”
It also became the training ground that helped prepare Littleton for what he would eventually confront as an inside linebacker.
“When you’re a special teams player in the NFL, you have to do so many different things,” Barry said. “You have to cover kicks. You have to block on punt return. You have to block on kick return. On punt rush, you have to be a rusher fighting through blocks.
“I really do think all of those things he did from a special teams standpoint those first two years really helped him kind of hone his craft. Because playing linebacker in today’s football is kind of the same thing. You have to take on offensive linemen, get off blocks and make tackles. You have to rush the passer. You have to be able to cover tight ends and cover running backs.”
To drive that point home, Barry shared with The Athletic some insight as he broke down film of a recent NFL game.
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“As I’m sitting here watching, on almost every snap, it’s 11 personnel. It’s spread formations. It’s one back, it’s a tight end flexed out of the core,” he said. “The days of 21 personnel when there was a lead fullback or the days of 22 personnel when there were two tight ends and a fullback, those days are kind of over. That’s not today’s NFL.
“And because of those offensive changes, that’s forced defenses to change. Linebackers still need to be a physical downhill run player, but they also have to be able to do so many other things because of the style of offense now being played. They have to be able to match up against scat backs out of the backfield. They have to be able to cover tight ends down the field. So that body type, that 6-3, 250-pound inside linebacker doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s the 6-1, 6-2, 220-pound linebacker that can run a 4.5 40.
“Of course, you would love a guy that was 6-3, 240 pounds that can run 4.4 and match up with tight ends and match up with running backs and they be able to be physical enough in run support,” Barry continued. “You’d love to be able to have those guys. But those are unique individuals.”
As a result, finding those in-between guys who can do both is paramount.
Going all the way back to 2016, Barry had an inkling Littleton could be that kind of player. And while the linebacker group he inherited was set inside with Mark Barron and Alec Ogletree, it didn’t take long before he and Phillips began developing packages for Littleton.
“My whole thing my second year was just trying to find a way to get on the field. And whenever I did get a chance to get on the field, figure out a way to make an impact,” Littleton said. “I was able to do that. I was able to make some plays. And the coaches began finding ways to get me on the field more. Which I greatly appreciated.”
Watching Littleton seize those opportunities as an injury replacement for Barron convinced the Rams that Littleton could be a full-time starter. When the organization went about plotting the 2018 offseason, its conviction in Littleton made the decision to trade Ogletree to the New York Giants to free up salary cap space much more palatable.
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“Every time Cory had to go in in relief or to start, he not only survived [but also] he went in there and excelled,” Barry said. “All those things combined, when we made the decision to let Alec go and basically say we’re turning the reins over to Cory, we all felt really comfortable.”
Littleton has more than lived up to the coaches’ confidence.
“Cory is a baller,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said. “He’s a guy that has done an excellent job. Everybody has noticed what an impact he’s made the last few years in special teams. He’s still doing that and then he’s playing every single snap on defense.
“He’s doing a great job with the communication plan at that MIKE linebacker spot. You see the versatility that he has, being able to be efficient in coverage, being able to blitz. What a great job he does pursuing the run. He’s playing really at a high level right now.”
Top photo of Cory Littleton: Joe Robbins / Getty Images