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Rams get: DE/OLB Dante Fowler
Jaguars get: 2019 third-round pick, ’20 fifth-round pick
Los Angeles logic: The Rams’ greatest need was for an edge rusher, and injuries to Morgan Fox and Dominique Easley only heightened that. And in the team’s view, the price point made sense. The pick is conditional—it’ll be the highest compensatory selection or, if they don’t get third-round comp picks, the team’s slotted third-rounder. And they feel confident they’ll have comp threes, plural—one for Sammy Watkins, and another for Trumaine Johnson.
In that case, they’d lose a pick in the low 90s, and still have three picks in the first three rounds (their second-rounder belongs to Kansas City as part of the Marcus Peters trade). And if they let Fowler go in March, they’ll get a 2020 comp pick coming back.
There’s also the belief that getting away out of Florida will have a good affect on Fowler’s maturation (we’ll get into that in a minute). And his experience in college standing up and moving up and down the line make him a pretty decent match for what Wade Phillips asks of his outside linebackers.
Jacksonville logic: Remember when Jalen Ramsey got suspended? That wasn’t just about a fight or a tweet, but it was also a warning shot to the locker room. And consider this another. The makeup of the team has become combustible, and it’s the big personalities—like Ramsey, Yannick Ngakoue and Fowler—that make it that way.
So along with the fact that the Jaguars simply weren’t going to pay him as a top edge rusher, which made these known to be his final months as a Jaguar, there’s an element of addition by subtraction here at a position that’s strong regardless.
The Jaguars still really like Fowler as a person, and he has matured some from the kid who drew a bevy of fines in his first couple years, with a long history of unforced errors (like being late). But he still wasn’t there the Jags wanted him, and privately they agree with the Rams’ assessment that leaving his home state could help him.
The other blunt truth here is that he just wasn’t as effective as the other two. Ramsey has played 99% of the team’s defensive snaps this year, Ngakoue is at 70% and Fowler, who doesn’t play special teams, is at 32%. Add that together, and the idea of moving what would’ve been a decent comp pick up a year and tacking on a fifth-rounder in 2020 makes plenty of sense.
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DANTE FOWLER TO THE RAMS: Surprising to see the Jaguars parting ways with defensive depth, even if Fowler was passed a little bit in their pecking order. The compensation—according to ESPN, a third- and fifth-round pick—isn’t bad considering the motivation behind the deal. Meanwhile, Los Angeles spends what little capital they have left to acquire a screamer off the edge for crunch time in the playoffs.
They’re all in on 2018, which is what you’d expect for the only undefeated team in football. Jacksonville wouldn’t tinker with that defense—their lifeblood—if they didn’t think something else was in the works. GRADE: B-
