Rams factored in compensatory pick when trading for Sammy Watkins
By: Cameron DaSilva
[
theramswire.usatoday.com]
As of now, it looks as though the Los Angeles Rams lost the blockbuster Sammy Watkins trade from last August. They gave up a second-round pick and E.J. Gaines to land the young wideout, but after he bolted in free agency last month, it turned out to be just a one-year rental.
That’s a huge price to pay for one season of a player’s services, but the Rams knew what they were getting into when they acquired Watkins. They were well aware of his injury history and expiring contract, still electing to take a chance on the former Bills receiver.
Les Snead also knew that if the Rams remained disciplined in free agency this year, they’d be rewarded next offseason by way of a compensatory pick. Watkins signed a massive $48 million contract with the Chiefs, likely netting the Rams a third-round comp pick in 2019.
That doesn’t even out the trade, but it does mitigate the losses from it.
“When we did that, what we did do on the front is go, ‘OK, if we lost Sammy, and we gave up a second-rounder’ – and you always knew that could be a possibility,” Snead told Peter King. “We knew that if we were disciplined in this part of the calendar, free agency, we would have a chance to recoup a third-rounder the following year with the compensatory draft selections. So if you look at the calculus of what we’ve done this offseason, even though we’ve been really active, we’ve lost four unrestricted free agents … and everybody we’ve acquired has not been another team’s unrestricted free agent. We’ve done it via trade, and Ndamukong Suh was cut.”
This isn’t breaking news or any sort of revelation, but it does show that the Rams had a plan when they acquired Watkins. They knew there was a fair chance he’d leave in free agency, especially given the timing of the trade with it coming in August.
That left very little time to negotiate a new contract before March, which made it difficult for the Rams to retain their receiver. Fortunately, with Watkins signing a huge contract in Kansas City, Los Angeles should expect to receive a third-rounder for both him and Trumaine Johnson.
“We’ve got a good chance, historically, to regain a third-rounder for Trumaine, a third-rounder for Sammy, and then later-round picks for [Derek Carrier and Cody Davis] as long as we stayed discipline during this phase. So we did prepare for that, but we went into it going, ‘This definitely could work.’ But Sammy’s a good player, we franchised Lamarcus [Joyner], Sammy went to the market, and as Wade Phillips says sometimes, good players get paid.”
Watkins and Johnson both did get paid, which is a good thing for the Rams. They were able to replace both with Brandin Cooks and a combination of Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib and Sam Shields, arguably getting better (and cheaper) at both positions.
