WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — Los Angeles Rams safety Quentin Lake is set to make his return to practice this week, and he’s coming back to quite a reward.

The Rams have signed Lake to a three-year contract extension, the team announced Thursday.

The new deal comes on the day Lake is set to return to practice after a six-week trip to injured reserve to repair a dislocated elbow. The return was all about getting the top leader on defense back into the fold, and now the Rams are making that status clear with a rare in-season extension.

This is the second in-season extension on defense this year, along with linebacker Nate Landman’s three-year deal. The Rams typically wait until the offseason to negotiate with their players, but it was always a goal to sign a deal with Lake, who spent much of his childhood in Los Angeles before playing at UCLA and then getting drafted by the Rams.

“This is a place I’d love to play for, for the rest of my career,” Lake said earlier this season.

Lake’s impact is hard to ignore, whether he’s on the field or not. The 2022 sixth-round pick grew from a special teamer and backup his first two seasons to a full-time starter last year, when he racked up 111 tackles. This season showed a growth in playmaking from him, as he intercepted his first pass, forced a fumble, recovered a fumble and added a sack through 10 games before the injury.

Lake’s play defines the scheme that coordinator Chris Shula runs, which deploys four- and five-man fronts with heavy zone coverage and dime defenses built to hold serve against the run with lighter bodies and confuse the quarterback with pre- and post-snap coverage movement. Lake mastered that role in his fourth season by rotating from nickel cornerback to strong safety to free safety while also communicating those changing coverages to younger players as a team captain.

With Lake starting this season, the Rams boasted one of the best defenses across the board, despite fielding the lowest-paid offensive or defensive unit on any NFL team this season. Through 10 games, the Rams allowed just 17.2 points per game.

In the six games since that injury, Los Angeles has surrendered 25.6 points per game. The defense had a strong showing the next week against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the Rams lost 31-28 to the Carolina Panthers when they couldn’t turn Bryce Young over, and the run defense showed leakage for the first time. They then allowed 34 points to the Detroit Lions, 38 to the Seattle Seahawks and 27 to the Atlanta Falcons. They went 3-3 in that stretch, following an 8-2 start with Lake.

Lake had always been targeting a return for the postseason since he dislocated his elbow. That remains the plan, as the Rams plan to open his practice window for Thursday’s walkthrough practice but expect him to make his in-game return for the wild-card round next week, when Los Angeles will play on the road.

“You don’t replace a Quentin Lake,” coach Sean McVay said at the time of the injury. “He’s so valuable for so many reasons with what he can do, with who he is as a human, with the way that he elevates and leads. He’s a glue guy for us.”