Will the Rams make a pre-deadline trade? Les Snead's track record says yes
Andrew Ortenberg
[
theramswire.usatoday.com]
The trade deadline is just five days away, coming on Oct. 30. Seemingly every year, the NFL inches closer and closer to joining the other major professional sports leagues in terms of trade activity. Major trades involving players used to be more or less unheard of mid-season, but they’re now becoming the norm. Times are changing in the league, and this year’s deadline should be the busiest ever.
Just within the past week, players like Amari Cooper, Damon ‘Snacks’ Harrison, and Eli Apple have all been dealt by teams who are throwing in the towel, and things are just getting started. Stars like Patrick Peterson and Le’Veon Bell have come up frequently in trade rumors, and there will surely be a few shockers before deadline day.
But will the Los Angeles Rams make a move? There are certainly a few holes that could be addressed, particularly on defense. Recently, we took a look at seven potential trade targets, and all of them were defensive players.
So will the Rams be one of the teams pulling off a trade in the coming days?
General manager Les Snead’s track record says absolutely yes. Everything Snead has done recently indicates that he’ll be extremely aggressive working the phones.
Snead executed five trades this offseason, acquiring Brandin Cooks, Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib while shipping out Robert Quinn and Alec Ogletree. They were all bold moves, and it’s hard to argue any of them have been unsuccessful. Many of the smartest teams in the league have recently kickstarted the trend of trading later picks for flyers on veterans no longer wanted by their teams for various reasons (see the Patriots giving up a fifth-rounder for Josh Gordon), and the Rams are certainly one of them.
Snead has blossomed into one of the most aggressive front office heads in the NFL, also aggressively pursuing Ndamukong Suh in free agency after his release from the Dolphins, and isn’t afraid to buck conventional wisdom.
Rather than sign Sammy Watkins to a massive deal, Snead went out and made the deal for Cooks. Rather than pay Trumaine Johnson the fortune he was going to get in free agency, Snead acquired two All-Pro corners in Peters and Talib for relatively little draft capital.
One of the things that has made the Snead-Sean McVay partnership so successful is that the team isn’t blind to its own deficiencies, and they clearly know they could use an upgrade at outside pass-rusher as well as some help in the secondary.
Snead has shown he is more than willing to part with draft picks if it can bring back proven veteran talent, and it would be shocking if he isn’t at least looking into trade options at the moment. It’s impossible to predict what will happen, but if Rams fans are hoping for a trade in the next five days, they should definitely like their chances.
