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PHDram
not a good enough reason? seems like a pretty dran good reason to me.
and while goff and gurly were a year early i dont think cooks was (if i recall correctly). further i dont have a problem signing goff early. the drafting of goff (along with the arrival of mcvay) coincides with the ascendance of this team. i understand and agree that he didnt have a great year. we can (and have, and probably will continue to) debate the reason for those issues, but he deserves at least some credit for making this team a perennial playoff team. thus solidigy the qb position was the right move at the time even if it didnt work out in retrospect. look at the redskins. they didnt want to sign cousins and they are still searching for a qb. if you dont have a competent qb you dont have anything. look at the playoffs, brady (ugh), rodgers, mahomes (maybe) and allen (young guy who had a great year).
I agree that saving money is one of the major tactics a team should use to manage the salary cap. The problem is, the Rams have made a lot of mistakes with early extensions dating back before McVay.
There were people here advocating that they shouldn't sign Goff early. (I wasn't one of those people with that foresight.) He had majorly struggled in the 2nd half of 2018. Turns out, it may not have been just struggling but an exposure of his weaknesses that may not be fixable. At the very least, those major struggles should have caused them to proceed with caution. Maybe they should have done what Washington did with Cousins.
Gurley was a mistake because it's really not wise to sign RBs to large 2nd contracts. They fade quickly as is but that's especially true when they knew that given his knee injury history, arthritis was likely to be a concern in the future.
Have no issue with the Cooks signing. (Well as aside, I still don't like the decision making that year b/c they should have just ponied up the money for Watkins and saved their 1st round pick.)
At any rate, I think they should be a little more cautious with the early extensions than they have been. It seems about half work, half backfire. That's a high rate of backfiring.