First off let me say one thing. I have no problem with Matt Stafford I think he's a fine QB he's not in my top 10 and I don't know that he makes us a contender by himself with our other issues. He's my favorite baseball players best friend and I hope he wins for us. I don't care that Jared Goff is on the Lions now I don't and won't root for him or them I'm a Rams fan. The line I use for every free agent still holds true. I wish them nothing but the best and hope they succeed unless they're playing us.
My problem is this is the second time the media has said we've gone all in on a closing window. The first was when McVay took over the team and we had a QB and RB on rookie deals. They went hog wild in free agency and the trade market and brought in a bunch of big names. This round of pushing all the chips to the middle of the table ended with a SB loss that's fine it happens. Lesson learned?
We followed that disappointing loss and performance by McVay's offense by signing Todd Gurley and Brandin Cooks to long term big money deals and continued to wheel and deal and bring in more big name trades/free agents. People say you can't predict Gurleys knee going the way it did but his knee issues were nothing new he had them in college. We signed him before his rookie deal was up and he never played a down on his high priced extension. Lesson learned?
Brandin Cooks came to the Rams as a big play WR capable of taking the top off the defense and expanding the Rams offense. He succeeded at that role and we were a better team with him in it. He also came to us with concussion issues but we sent a 1st round pick to the Pats of all teams to get him knowing he was a good player but also knowing concussions were a major issue. We did this time at least get one year out of the big extension before sending the player and a $36 million dead cap hit that cost us a 1st rounder to the Texans for a 2nd round pick and a 4th rounder in 2022. Lesson learned?
Then a full year before his rookie deal was up we signed Jared Goff to a monster contract which again the player never played a down for us under that new contract. McVay again responsible for an extension before it's needed on a player he couldn't make work in the offense only to bail on the player. This time sending away picks because the contract was deemed so bad that we had to give the Lions our QB and 2 future first round draft picks plus a 3rd rounder this year.
McVay and Snead have done wonders to rebuild the Rams from the years of futility after the GSOT. But as a fan of this team for 40+ years I don't want him ever to resign another player on offense especially as early as he did with Jared.
Had they not given Gurley and Cooks those big contracts maybe Roger Saffold is still in Horns and our OLine is much better. Maybe Greg Zeurlein is sill a Ram even though eventually we got Rudy Gay who seems like a good kicker. Maybe we're able to afford a few nice free agents to make the team better.
Had they waited until the end of the 2019 season we could have ridden Jared on his 5th year option and it would have saved us money this past season and beyond. It also would have cost us less to trade for Stafford since we didn't have to pay the Lions to take on that contract. Hell maybe we're able to trade for him before this season and it cost us a lot less.
I love the Rams as much as anybody around here but these continued swings and misses with signing our own offensive players, McVay's expertise and his side of the ball is where these problems happen, is really alarming. This is the 2nd time they've gone all in for a SB win instead of built up a solid team around pieces. Hope this run ends better than the last one and hold your breath if we sign any offensive player to an extension.
That's with the benefit of hindsight...
And we're lucky to have Stafford as an alternative.
Look where the Cowboys are. They're on the outside looking in and by waiting, if they want to retain Prescott, it'll likely cost them between Mahomes and Watson money.
Ultimately, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have done what Dallas did and they should have done what we did with respect to the QB and RB contracts...
But honestly, Dallas is in a worse position than we are... and that's largely due to the divine providence that made Stafford available at exactly the time the Rams wanted desperately to move on from Goff.
I shudder at the next two years with Goff benched and Wolford as our starter as much as I like both of them.
So, in those moments when I doubt... I remember that sometimes the alternatives don't work out, either...
