ESPN: Five offseason moves to improve every NFC West team

This all makes a lot of sense to me. One disagreement I have is paying Anderson $3M. As much as he and Gurley can be a dangerous duo in 2019 I don't think you can pay a RB2 $3M/year if you're the Rams. I would rather give Malcolm Brown 2 years/$4M. I'm all in on Goff but agree about using the 2019 cap money to help around him. Extend him next spring.

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Los Angeles Rams

1. Convince Andrew Whitworth to come back. The easiest way for the Rams to disappoint in 2019 is for their offensive line to take a step backward. We saw how Sean McVay's offense ground to a half amid a poor performance from their line in Super Bowl LIII, and with no experienced replacement for Whitworth on the roster (and just one top-95 pick in the draft), the Rams desperately need their 37-year-old left tackle to put off retirement and return for another season.

What will it take to convince Whitworth to stay? As he enters the final year of his three-year contract, the Rams could give Whitworth a one-year extension with a raise in 2019 to start. Is he sick of the Los Angeles traffic? Owner Stan Kroenke has to have a spare helicopter laying around somewhere. Let Whitworth commute on the chopper. Is there a Yoshinoya black card? Whatever it takes.
Signed in mid-December as Todd Gurley insurance, C.J. Anderson had a productive run with the Rams. Gary A. Vasquez/USA TODAY Sports

2. Bring back Rodger Saffold and C.J. Anderson. Might as well keep the left side of the line intact, and at 30, Saffold should still have several years left in the tank. There might still be a team out there that looks at him as a possible tackle candidate, but Saffold is probably looking at a deal in the $11-12 million annual salary range.

Anderson and Los Angeles seems like a good fit for all parties involved after the former Broncos back came off the street and excelled in December and January. The Rams shouldn't go over $3 million per season to retain him, but as an insurance policy against Todd Gurley's knee -- which, he'll be happy to tell you, is fine and definitely not injured -- Anderson is a helpful backup.

3. Trade down from the 31st pick. Teams will buzz the Rams on the end of Day 1 in the hopes of trading back into the first round, which has the advantage of providing teams with a fifth-year option. The Rams will want to make the pick, of course, but this is a team that has traded away most of its top draft picks to either draft Jared Goff or build around him.

It's more important that L.A. comes away with two or three solid contributors from this draft who can succeed for cheap over the next few seasons than go after one player with a slightly stronger chance of becoming a star, especially as the team continues to lock in the core of this squad. If the Rams can get a team picking in the top half of the round to send them second-round picks in 2019 and 2020, they should jump at the chance.

4. Sign Clay Matthews and wait out the market on veterans. Matthews is almost too obvious of a fit. The Rams are thin on the edge and probably won't be able to afford to bring back Dante Fowler Jr. Matthews grew up in Southern California and walked on at USC, where his home stadium was the Rams' current home. Matthews' numbers are down in recent years, but joining the Rams would allow him to play as a full-time edge rusher. The inside linebacker work Matthews did in Green Bay also should depress his price to the point where the Rams can afford to bring in Matthews on a one-year deal.

Every veteran player who wants a meaningful shot at winning a Super Bowl is going to tell their agent they want to come play for the Rams this offseason. The Rams will likely sit out most of free agency to avoid impacting their standing in the compensatory pick formula, but they'll target players who are cut by their current teams, since those players won't count against the compensatory formula.

Who does that mean? At wide receiver, the Rams could stash a wideout like Emmanuel Sanders on the physically unable to perform list to have depth in case of, say, another Cooper Kupp injury. If the Vikings cut Everson Griffen, another former USC product, the Rams would loom as an obvious destination. Justin Houston also would make sense. There will be surprise cuts, as there are every year, and the Rams will presumably have first dibs on any of those. They should have enough clout to encourage some veterans to hold off on signing until after July 1, when the moves won't touch the compensatory formula.

5. Don't extend Jared Goff this offseason. Teams have the option of extending their first-round picks with long-term deals after the end of their third seasons in the league. In most cases, they wait a year and reap the benefits of a fourth season priced in at well below market value. The exceptions are generally for transcendent superstars such as J.J. Watt and Patrick Peterson.

The Rams are the exception to the exception: They've done several fourth-year extensions under GM Les Snead, including Tavon Austin, Robert Quinn and, most recently, Gurley. You can see how those moves went. Austin was a disastrous contract from the jump. Quinn fell off dramatically after a 19-sack season in Year 3, although he looked like an absolute star. Gurley was an MVP candidate for half of 2018, but he was struggling by the end of the season with a mysterious knee injury, and the Rams didn't skip a beat when they replaced Gurley with Anderson.
Jared Goff finished the regular season with 32 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions, but he struggled in Super Bowl LIII. AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

It's too early to evaluate the Gurley deal, but as we get to Goff's future, look no further than the Super Bowl. The Patriots flummoxed Goff in a way that might end up being telling. He made a few excellent anticipatory throws, but he spent most of the game out of rhythm waiting for somebody to get open.

Earlier this year, I brought up the idea of a team constantly remaining on the rookie quarterback cycle by drafting a quarterback, developing him into a star, and then trading him at the end of his rookie deal for a high draft pick to repeat the process. The right team would have a brilliant offensive mind for a head coach and oodles of offensive talent, players the team otherwise would have to let go to pay their quarterback a premium.

The Rams are the most obvious example for this concept, although it's clear they believe Goff is a bona fide franchise quarterback. I don't think the Rams will hop back on the rookie passer cycle. I don't think they should trade Goff at the end of his rookie deal, either. I don't know if any team will ever have the guts to do it, because getting that rookie quarterback evaluation wrong as a GM means you're getting fired and becoming the butt of jokes for a decade. It's too much pressure.

At the same time, I don't think Goff is such an obvious perennial Offensive Player of the Year candidate that the Rams need to start extending him immediately. It has to at least be a little concerning that Goff's numbers fell off once Kupp was injured, especially because Kupp is the exact sort of luxury the Rams would struggle to keep around at the going rate for wide receivers once they give Goff a raise.

There's no rush here. Get another year of information, and if Goff is the player the Rams think he is, they'll still have tons of leverage to extend him after Year 4. The Rams can use their cap space now to add veteran talent or roll it over to have extra money when Goff does get expensive. And if Goff does take a step backward in 2019, well, it could save the Rams from a Derek Carr-esque conundrum.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2019 03:17AM by LMU93.