Rams are ‘working through’ plan for Gurley in 2020...

Rams are 'working through' plan for Todd Gurley in 2020

[theramswire.usatoday.com]

Cameron DaSilva

Two offseasons ago, the Los Angeles Rams signed Todd Gurley to a record four-year, $57.5 million extension. In 2020, that contract will finally kick in and run through the 2023 season. Yet, despite the fact that the Rams appeared to commit to Gurley long-term, there are questions about his future in L.A. already.

He had a down year in 2019, has a cap hit of $17.25 million next season and doesn’t look like the player he was in 2017 and 2018. There’s a legitimate chance the Rams trade him in an attempt to dump his salary, but that will be difficult to do.

For the time being, they’re working through a plan for their pricey running back, as it pertains to both the offseason and his workload during the regular season.

“We’re working through that right now. It’s no different than, an Andrew Whitworth has a different plan of approach. You want to be consistent, but I think certain guys – just understanding the workload that their specific position entails or what is the best way to have a long-term solution for getting through the entire season,” McVay said. “We’ve been consistent with that with Todd Gurley from when I first got here. I think it was just something that was talked about more because he missed a couple games toward the latter half of the ’18 season, but those are things that you want to be able to be specific with each player while still being consistent in the big picture, and those are things that as we get closer to those dates we’ll discuss a little bit more.”

McVay said he will sit down with Gurley at some point, as he does with all of his players. It’s unclear what will be discussed in that meeting or when exactly it will take place, but there will most likely be conversations about his role on offense and how he’ll be used in 2020.

It’s very possible the Rams will once again limit his workload, just as they did last season when he got just 223 carries and caught 31 passes. The reported arthritis in his knee will continue to be a talking point, which is presumably the reason the Rams tried to keep him fresh for the better part of last season.

“Any time you have a player like him, you want to be able to just get engaged on, all right, how did he process the season? And this is really standard for all of our players,” McVay said on NFL Network. “We kind of do that, but a guy like Todd, a player of his magnitude and how important he’s been to this organization, I think it’s important that we do our due diligence and do it the right way. We’ll sit down and have a conversation and that’s the standard and par for the course. I think everything is so magnified because of what a premium player in this league he’s been. He’s got that charisma, that magnetic personality and there’s always an interest in what’s going on with him and he’s been a big part of our success.”

It was clear that Gurley wasn’t happy last season. During press conferences, he was noticeably frustrated and uninterested in answering questions about his knee, lack of touches and the team’s struggles – and understandably so.

McVay doesn’t think his frustration stemmed from a smaller workload or the knee injury, but rather from the team’s overall issues.

“He’s a team guy. I think he was frustrated because we didn’t live up to the expectations and the things we expected to achieve,” McVay said. “Any time you’re a great playmaker, I think you’re going to want the ball. Any guy that’s been elite in this league, or any elite competitor, they want the ball. He’s always still been about the team first. You look at the way he’s handled things, he’s always been about that. he’s represented the right things day in and day out. I think we were all frustrated and it wasn’t exactly the way we wanted it to go last year.”

If the Rams do move on from Gurley by trading him this offseason, they’ll save $4.65 million in cap space but incur $12.6 million in dead money. It’d be a tough pill to swallow, but not an impossible one.