I doubt the Rams will ever be able to find common ground with AD and his agent.
I believe the Rams will let his contract play out, invoke the option year, and then tag him at least once. Why? Because just like Watkins, Donald is not going to be happy unless the Rams offer the top end of what AD and his agent say the market is; or.....they allow AD to go to the FA market to find out what some insane team might pay him. I mean if KC will pay Watkins $16 mil with $30 mil guaranteed to catch about 45-50 balls or so a year, what might some team pay the best DT in the game?
My prediction is that after the Rams have tagged him once or twice, he'll be gone. I doubt the Rams can get near as much for him as people think (two #1's? Be serious).
And I also suspect that Donald will, each year, skip camp and the first couple of games and the Rams should plan for it.
And some fans will blame the Rams FO and call them cheap. And others will blame AD and call him unreasonable and greedy. That's sports.
But the Rams need to always keep the Suh Paradigm in mind. Suh was/is every bit as great as his rep and his draft position. BUT......a DT due to the nature of his assignment and position can only have a certain affect on a game outcome. And it is less than the guys who touch the ball. So as great as Suh has been, he has not brought the two teams he's played for anywhere near a Superbowl because of his dominant presence. It is valuable to the overall defensive unit, but is simply not enough to turn the tide by itself.
And I think the Rams are just being politically correct in saying what they're saying publicly about wanting to pay Donald. But in reality they're slow rolling it. And I think the Rams believe that they are in about a 3 year window to get to the Superbowl before they have to reload (meaning good bye Donald and Gurley), and that's why they made the moves they have in the Secondary.
The hard cap era, the FA, and the way the CBA works has changed things dramatically. This is not the Troy Aikman Cowboy era. You can't keep all your top players for their entire careers. It's just the system.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2018 05:37AM by RockRam.
