Well, building it like the Rams has a lot of flaws too. They have not had any top picks in like forever and they might implode this year, win or loose, trying to keep a core team intact. Mean time, Miami might be leading the parade as far as how not to build a team from the top down, right there with the Texans, the Jags, Detroit, the Giants, and the list could go on and on.
Tell me about those several $18-30mm contracts. I feel like those are record breaking numbers and I’m suprised I missed it. I guess if JD was paying $30mm to Van Rotten, he should definitely poney up $30mm for Adams
They are trying to establish themselves in a win-now city. It makes perfect sense for them I think with a decent core of drafted players already in place to build a team through trades. Yes they might, probably will, crash and burn in a year or two but they are gambling on winning a SB and becoming THE LA team first I think. Lots of different ways to build contenders. Bengals remind me a lot of the Falcons team a few years ago, but Burrow is a lot younger than Ryan was.
The Rams might be the most underrated drafting team in the league. Yes, they are built around 4 players at their core, but the entire roster is filled out with homegrown talent. They’re just not talked about as much because the media loves to gush about the superstars. Players like Greg Gaines, Rapp/Fuller/Burgess at safety, their offensive line and linebacking corp have been great this year and they keep retooling with 2nd-4th round picks (same strategy the Patriots used for years).
I think people (myself included) misinterpreted the lack of 1st rounders with a lack of picks overall. They've had 8 or more pick in each of the last five years and 5 within the top 141 in 4 of the last 5. 2022 will be a great exception since at the moment, all they have is a 5 and 2 7s.
Van Roten only got a $10.5M deal. McGovern, Lewis and Fant all signed deals in the $18-30M range and only Fant seems like he might have been worth it.
If wanted misleading information I’d spend more time on Facebook. Lewis’ “18-30 mm deal” was 4.5mm per year for 2 year. VanRottens “10mm deal” was 3.5mm per year for 2 years. McGovern, Fant, Lewis, and Van Rotten all played up to the value of their contracts.
Joe Douglas really swung and missed on Lewis. I wonder what happened there. Lewis showed some promise on the field but went AWOL and flipped the team the bird on his way out of here. There's a human component to the game that front offices sometimes fail to see, I wonder if that was the case there
We've gone through a lot of veteran OL in the last few years trying to flesh out the line. Other than Fant and maybe McGovern they haven't represented more than a stopgap filler for a season and sometimes not even that. Fant and McGovern will both be 30 next season and who knows where they'll be in a year? The OL is a bad unit to continually try to fill holes on. Sometimes you can get lucky and high quality vets suddenly come free at the same time (Woody and Faneca come to mind) and you are just fine for a year or two. Most of the time you are picking up the leavings at the end of an average vets career and those are often a bloody mess.
This is an excellent point. The Rams have a lot of unsung heros that most people don’t hear much about it, doing an outstanding job across the board, captured in the middle draft rounds, including a couple on the DL no one talks about.
The amazing thing is the Rams have all that talent and they've consistently traded their 1st round picks. Somebody in LA has their pulse on what makes a good NFL player and they can find them without using a premium pick.
Indeed. The combination of an owner that wants to win at all costs, plus what seems a great tandem of HC and GM. You don’t see much of the GM in the front pages, but I bet he is the string puller behind the scenes.
What's interesting about the Rams is that you don't see a lot of anybody in the news unless they're wearing a helmet. Really good prioritization there in terms of marketing resources. I guess McVay gets the most publicity after the players and he's the one closest to the helmets.
