On the third day of the current league year, the Rams picked up Matthew Stafford‘s 2023 option bonus and his 2024 salary, a decision that guaranteed just under $60MM of the veteran quarterback’s contract. Prior to that happening, however, Los Angeles made a concerted effort to trade Stafford, as former NFL general manager Michael Lombardi said on a recent episode of The Pat McAfee Show (Twitter link).
Shortly before the league year opened, Rams GM Les Snead indicated that his club was committed to retaining Stafford. By that point, Snead might have already realized that he was not going to be able to find a trade partner and therefore decided that a public display of faith in the 35-year-old passer was appropriate. Alternatively, he may have been trying to drum up some eleventh-hour trade interest.
In any case, it is not surprising that there were no takers. After all, an acquiring team would have had to make the same financial commitment to Stafford that the Rams made just a few days after Snead’s comments, and Stafford’s 2022 campaign certainly did not warrant such an expenditure, to say nothing of the draft capital — however minimal — that Snead may have been seeking in a trade.
Los Angeles, of course, entered last season as the reigning Super Bowl champions, and while Stafford led the league in interceptions in the 2022 regular season, he also threw 41 touchdown passes and more than justified the trade that brought the longtime Lion to southern California. But the Rams’ title defense was nothing short of a disaster, and Stafford struggled through an injury-plagued year in which he played only nine games and threw 10 TDs against eight interceptions.
After years of aggressive moves to acquire and maintain high-profile talent, Snead & Co. went in a different direction this offseason, jettisoning the likes of Jalen Ramsey, Leonard Floyd, Allen Robinson, and Bobby Wagner without making any needle-moving free agent additions (with all due apologies to Demarcus Robinson and Brett Rypien). So it stands to reason that, while Snead has preferred to use the term “remodel” rather than “rebuild” to describe the Rams’ current competitive status, he would have explored ways to get Stafford’s expensive, thru-2026 contract off the books.
Since those efforts were unsuccessful, Stafford — who, along with Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp, was named a “weight-bearing wall” in Snead’s multi-faceted remodel analogy — will seek to recapture his 2021 form and prove that he can be the quarterback to lead the Rams back to contention.
He did, at least, enter the Rams’ offseason program without any medical restrictions, so from a health perspective, it appears that he will be better-positioned for success in 2023 than he was in 2022. With his 2024 cap number checking in at a whopping $49.5MM, the upcoming season will certainly go a long way towards determining Stafford’s long-term future in LA.
The team selected two-time collegiate national champion Stetson Bennett in the fourth round of this year’s draft, though Bennett is not presently viewed as a franchise quarterback. However, he could not have asked for a better landing spot than the Rams, considering the presence of Stafford (a fellow Georgia alum) and head coach Sean McVay. Bennett and Rypien will compete for the backup job behind Stafford in training camp.
2o24
People thought Matt should retire. Why, hair under $60m guaranteed. I’d keep playing as well.
People thought AR was going to retire too but 60 million kind of changes everything
Isn’t Stetson Bennett older than Stafford? Bad QB situation there in LA
He’s almost as old as Goff.
Probably the only team they were waiting on were the Jets who would have done it had the Rodgers trade fallen through. But when Rodgers himself said he was playing for them, that was that.
How very Rams of them.
Cooper Kupp will get triple teamed. They have no WRs outside of him.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if a trade partner wanted a high pick with Stafford in exchange. That contract extension is a cap killer. Stafford will be with the Rams in 2023 and 2024 before there is even an argument to be able to part ways. link to overthecap.com
In other news, the Rams are seeking licensing rights to make “Burning Down The House” their official team song.
Wouldn’t be shocked if rams try to battle for cousins or tannehill next season
You could see what was going to happen when the Rams went out and made all their moves in an effort to win the SB. Luckily for them, it turned out to work.
Considering how difficult it is to win one, I’d take the trade-off of what they have to deal with now. If they don’t win, well, yeah, then they’re screwed but in this case, that didn’t happen.
If I’m Snead, I have the trophy on my desk when I’m thinking about the moves I’m trying to make.
Next year they have all their picks and a mountain of cap room. Snead has managed the down season very well
I disagree. I don’t think that it took much skill to do what Snead did. Getting lucky with the Donald pick years ago allowed him to freely ignore the d-line as he gave away his team’s picks. Having a truly generational player like that allows much more room in roster construction. If Snead had an effective plan in place, he would not have done that Stafford extension. Or the Ramsay one (at least not for five years). In fact, I would argue that in order to truly rebuild, Donald should have been traded or allowed to walk, or at the very least not given that massive of a “please don’t retire” extension in conjunction with the others. I get that one a bit, though, given his importance to the team.
Snead deserves credit for picking Donald, but he hasn’t much else to show for his many years in office other than Cooper Kupp. Nearly all of his successful picks end up on other teams, and most of the Rams’ stars have been drafted by other teams. Snead doesn’t show much skill as a GM, simply a willingness to give away assets for other team’s successes. It worked once, but I doubt that it works again as his team’s only generational player ages into simply a “good” player.
Snead’s had many more misses than hits in the draft -Greg Robinson, Isiah Pead, Terell Lewis, etc.-so maybe it’s better that he doesn’t have many draft picks, but you need to be successful with the picks you do have to avoid cap bloat like the Rams are experiencing now. A lot the players that Snead dealt high picks for (Von Miller, Brandon Cooks) are no longer with the team only a few years later. Whitworth’s retirement revealed the utter lack of depth at tackle. The Rams were terrible before McVay’s hire and they figure to continue to be so as Snead manages the team.
What a horrible take.
Probably. Most of mine are. You are welcome to tell us your’s.
I forgot your measure of success is how a team goes about business in the offseason and not actual results. Making the Super Bowl multiple times has been an exclusive club the past decade. It’s basically the same few teams over and over. Rams are in that group. You’re model of how to run a team is basically the way the Cowboys do things. How has it worked out for them? Who needs a ring when you can lose in the 1st or 2nd round every year
That’s a lot of assumptions. A LOT of assumptions.
The Rams have made the Super Bowl, twice. That is true. For that, they deserve credit. However, their approach is not one that was complicated, exclusive, or skillful. It doesn’t take much knowledge to give all of your picks for other teams’ players. It certainly does not take much to miss on draft picks when you do have them.
Snead has had some notable successes-Kupp, Donald, and Gurley all come to mind. However, the vast majority of his most contributing players were drafted by other teams. Miller, Woods, Cooks, Beckham, Stafford, Ramsay, Floyd, Whitworth…even Nickell Roby-Coleman, a good nickel whose egregious penalty put the Rams in the Super Bowl where they couldn’t outscore the Patriots’ 13 points, came from another team. The reason that Snead deserves criticism is because his personal skillset is not unique or hard to find. It would be different if he had supplied his team with players to complement his expensive forays into free agency and trades, but he has not. The Rams did not seem to begin really trying to win until moving to L.A., which is mostly on ownership, so I will acknowledge that in Snead’s favor, but he seemed like more part of the problem in St. Louis than the solution.
You argued that teams making multiple Superbowls in a decade is an exclusive club. That is true. I would give much more of that credit to Sean McVay than Les Snead. Snead has five losing seasons and five winning seasons in ten years as G.M. That includes all of his four years in St. Louis (2012-2015), and two of his years in L.A. his total record is 91-86, a hair over .500. McVay is 60-38, leaving Snead with a record of 31-48 without him. Yes, Jeff Fisher was at best a mediocre coach, but Snead went hand in hand with him in failing to have a winning season until 2017. One or two years of bad play, or even three, in a rebuild is expected. But if you cannot reach .500 in four years, or even give, you usually lose your job.
It would be one thing is those years produced some homegrown superstars, but the only two quality players drafted in the Fisher years were Donald himself and Michael Brockers. Goff was drafted in 2016, but was not effective until McVay arrived, and is much better in Detroit already than throughout most of his Rams tenure. I would argue that the Rams failed to capitalize far too often on the stars that they acquired.
Despite having their “F them picks” strategy going since 2016 (when they traded the house for Goff-Snead did trade up to eighth overall in 2013 to inexplicably take Tavon Austin, and then gave him an extension for some reason in 2016), they have only made the Super Bowl twice in eight seasons. That is good on the surface, but you look at all the proven talent that they acquired on both sides of the ball, you’d think that the Rams would be in championship every year. Their playoff record, however, is not as impressive. In 2017, they were eliminated in the Wildcard. In 2020, they lost in the Divisional. In 2018 and 2021, they made the Super Bowl, winning the latter. That’s a pretty impressive 6-3 record. However, they somehow, despite acquiring all the talent they could in the league, missed the playoffs altogether in 2016, 2019, and 2022. If those were included as single losses, it would drop their record to that time to 6-6. That’s still pretty good, actually. When we include Snead’s prior record to McVay or “F Them Picks”, we get four additional years of missing the playoffs, from 2012-2015.
So, in Snead’s eleven years as GM, we have a good 6-3 playoff record and a pretty bad seven seasons missing the playoffs entirely. When you trade all of your picks for Pro Bowlers, you should be better than that. Talent is not the issue with those players, and if it is, then you made a bad trade as a G.M. The other part of the issue is how he handled those acquisitions. The Stafford extension is an example that Snead really doesn’t know what he’s doing. Stafford had been declining steadily in Detroit as he aged, but obviously was still effective. However, I don’t know how many people thought that he would be long term answer in another city. Snead either had no clue that Stafford would drop off so suddenly, or he chose to ignore that possibility when handing an extension to oft-hit and aged quarterback. Stafford was tough in Detroit and played through a lot of pain, and was mostly effective. It seemed very optimistic to expect more than two years at a high level from him. A short extension may have been necessary, but certainly not one for four years and $160 million.
Snead seems to compound his mistakes with long and expensive extensions frequently, which calls into question his foresight when he makes these moves. The Donald extension will be on the Rams’ books for some time, and he is still a good player, but he is getting older at a very physical position. I won’t doubt him too much, being the talent that he is, but the Ramsay extension was for far too long (five years) and too much money ($105 million, making the league’s highest paid DB in its history). Ramsay only played two years on that deal in L.A., the second of which (2022) was not impressive. We have the Todd Gurley extension in 2018, for $60 million and four years, which he played a year of and finished with less than 1000 yards (Gurley was an extreme talent, which I get, but he also was drafted after having knee surgery already, and had knee issues at Georgia, which foreshadowed his NFL decline). I’ve already mentioned the inexplicable Tavon Austin extension.
Snead doesn’t seem to know who to extend, and for how long, which is essential if you’re going to acquire veterans or keep the right players. Kupp figures to be a good move, and Donald may be, but the previous extensions for long periods and high money seem to not last more than a couple of years. You’d think that a franchise that acquires veterans more often would offer shorter deals to those players. Ironically, the ones that Snead rid himself early of could have ended up being productive at areas of need in L.A.Miller was productive in Buffalo before being hurt, Cooks was productive for years in Houston, both of which could have helped in L.A. and saved them money and picks that were spent on other veteran replacements (Robinson, Floyd). Again, the talent valuation is suspect to me when the wrong players are extended and the right ones are jettisoned.
Snead is just not impressive as G.M., and while he has a handful of notable successes, I think that should be expected-demanded, even-in an eleven year career. I do not think that he should be regarded as one of the league’s better G.M.s, and his strategy has not produced enough recently to make the Rams competitive in years to come. It doesn’t take much to rent out a team for a Super Bowl. Snead has been trying for seven years to do so, after failing to build one for four years prior. One success out of those tries, with all that the Rams have spent, does not show me enough to consider him nearly as talented as he gets credit for.
That turned out longer than I expected it to, and I don’t expect you to read it. But I enumerated all of the reasons, with specifics, that illustrate why Snead doesn’t seem to have a plan beyond his immediate season and why it makes him not nearly as effective a G.M. as he gets credit for.
I don’t care about what happened in St Louis, they were clearly tanking to get out of there. We heard “their window is closed” after the 2019 season too and look at how that ended up. They went into Seattle and embarrassed them in a playoff game. Nobody cares they lost at Lambeau R2 before eventually winning it all next season. If it is so easy where is the Seahawk’s success for trading multiple 1sts for Jamal Adams? Broncos with Russell Wilson and a COACH. Dolphins with all of their big acquisitions. Raiders with Adams. 49ers trading the future for Lance. Bears with Mack all those years ago. Bills with Diggs. Based on your comments you clearly like hoarding picks and playing it safe. How has that worked out for Dallas? It only works for the Chiefs because they got Mahomes in the first place with a risky trade.
I mean, if you just don’t care about over a third of Snead’s entire career, in a conversation ABOUT Les Snead, I don’t have much I can say to that.
What’s your obsession with Dallas, anyway? I never said anything about them. In any case, I’ve said what I have to say. Good talk.
Jeff Fisher had player/personnel decision responsibility for a period of time with Snead as GM. Donald may have been a Fisher pick rather than Snead.
Possibly. He and Brockers were drafted in that era. Fisher had a lot of say in personnel, according to him, but Snead articles (I just read one in the L.A. Times, for instance) frequently him as the voice in the room when it came to good decisions, and blaming Fisher for the rest. Always seemed very convenient to me. They said as much on the Goff pick at the time, and the Gurley pick, but then another article I read on the Athletic blamed Fisher for the Goff pick later, and stated that Snead wanted another player. I don’t bother trying to decipher the truth in that. It would make sense though, given Fisher’s defensive preferences.
It would have been criminal to NOT make an attempt to get out from under his stupid deal. Always liked Stafford’s attitude, but you can’t ignore how his career list of injuries have now limited his effectiveness.
He’s missed games for injury in only 2 seasons 2019 and 2022. He’s played through more than he should have which impacted him in 2022. His stupid deal was done by Snead. I’m sure he wasn’t going to get many takers prior to the Option/Guarantee kicking in for a QB coming off of IR.
The Bucs and Rams have shown us the cost to buy a SB. The Jets may show us the cost of trying to buy but falling short.
Selling low.
Smart.
Rams are lucky they got that super bowl win, otherwise their trade with the Lions would look incredibly dumb. They sold their soul for a super bowl win, lengthy rebuild ahead.
I guess that explains the Cooper Kupp to the Lions chatter recently.. I wasn’t buying it but now it makes sense.