Do Rams deserve a mulligan for disastrous season after winning the Super Bowl?

[www.turfshowtimes.com] Do Rams deserve a mulligan for disastrous season after winning the Super Bowl?
Polling Rams fans on whether or not a lost season is okay given the cost of winning a Super Bowl?

By Kenneth Arthur@KennethArthuRS Nov 29, 2022, 2:00pm CST

NFL: SEP 18 Falcons at Rams
Photo by Chris Williams/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Les Snead’s philosophical approach to roster building and the draft will be long debated among NFL fans and the media, not only because those decisions led to winning the Super Bowl but now also thanks to the flat tire season to follow. The Los Angeles Rams spent four seasons under Sean McVay as a contender that never quite had the juice to finish what they started, but that’s all any Super Bowl-winner ever needs.

Enough positive momentum to stay contending until January, at which points all bets are off. The Rams will be judged positively for 2021 because they won the Super Bowl, but the Buccaneers, 49ers, and Bengals all had fantastic opportunities to ensure that Snead and McVay’s storybook ending was another in a string of “too little, too late” for L.A..

Now thanks to Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, Aaron Donald, and Von Miller leading the way to do just enough to win a title, at least Rams fans don’t have to swallow today’s 3-8 record with a side of sewer manure. The Rams won the Super Bowl thanks to Les Snead’s strategy, so whether that’s by design or by chance, at least fans can fall back on “F them picks” working once instead of having to deal with an abysmal season for nothing.





But how long do Snead and McVay get credit for the formula working one time? Can the Rams be the worst team in the NFL for one season without fans and media attacking Snead and McVay for being “bad at their jobs”? Let’s say a team is 1st one year, 32nd the next year. How much better is that then say, being 2nd one year and 3rd the next?

Do the “32nd season” not count because the championship season exists?

Or should Snead and McVay be re-judged every year?

I asked the Turf Show Times staff whether or not the Rams deserve a mulligan for this season because of the Super Bowl win last season. Here are their answers. What’s yours?

JB Scott

No. The Rams set the expectations for themselves to reach the Super Bowl in 2022 and they’ve come up well short of that. They should be held accountable.

Blaine Grisak

Can I give out half a mulligan? If the Rams hadn’t won the Super Bowl last year, it would certainly make this season 10x worse. However, it doesn’t make this season less disappointing. A loss in the playoffs in the first round would have been worthy of a mulligan. However, the Rams are 3-7 and quite possibly the worst defending Super Bowl champion ever. A Super Bowl win excuses a first-round playoff exit. I’m not sure it excuses this.

Randy Soares

It’s all about winning in the present, so no. When this season’s over, I’ll feel the same way. Learn from the past, plan for the future, but live for all its worth in the present.

Daniel Stone

O yes. If I think about where this team was 10 or 15 years ago, they were going no where. Super Bowl was awesome. Can’t win every year, and they are coming off a great year. The injuries just keep mounting, it’s disappointing but still proud of what they got done.

Chris Daniel

They don’t deserve a mulligan. This season, however it plays out will be part of the Rams story. The goal is to win the Super Bowl. Any team that doesn’t do that did not have a successful season in my opinion, regardless of what the expectations were inside of the building. The Rams won the Super Bowl and this appears to be the cost. While I obviously wish the season played out differently, I’d would pay this price with no problem if that’s what it costs to win the Super Bowl.

Evan Craig

They should as one sour season shouldn’t spoil the recent success with this squad. If anything, the pressure will be on them next year to prove that this campaign was just an anomaly. Injuries and poor play calling killed them in their repeat bid. They can’t help the first one but the coaching staff has to be better if they want Aaron Donald and company to ever see another Super Bowl.