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Even with the extension in place, Fisher’s future with the Rams is “still up in the air and will largely depend on how the team plays this season and how it finishes out,” the report says.
If the Rams play well, Fisher will keep his job; if they don’t, he'll get fired but make more money because of this extension.
While Fisher’s new deal was signed this season, it was agreed to during the preseason, according to an NFL Network report. Fisher’s current deal was to expire this year.
If Fisher keeping his job was truly depended on how the team played this season, then there should have been no need to do the extension prior to the season in the first place. Fisher was coming off 4 consecutive losing seasons, yet Demoff/Kroenke saw fit to extend him for 2 years beyond his 5th season anyway. What that clearly says is that they planned for Fisher to return after his 5th season, not that Fisher's job was dependent on the results of his 5th season. While they may have left themselves the ability to fire Fisher after this season, that's more insurance against something like an 0-16 disaster than against merely another losing season.
It would also be absurd reasoning to believe that after 5 losing seasons, Fisher could still save his job merely by finishing out this 5th losing season with a few wins. If that is all it would take, that is once again evidence the plan was to bring him back for a 6th season all along. The bar is set so low that he could hardly avoid clearing it to "earn" another season, maybe two. But it does work to convince some writers and fans, obviously, that there is some kind of actual merit based decision making at play here. The Rams play people for suckers because it works, but won't work with most people. Eric Dickerson, for one.
