At the end of the 2022 season, the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, Les Snead sat at a crossroads.
The bill from the “eff them picks” era came due and the amount looked to be much more than he could pay for. While his audacious move to trade every first-round pick from 2017 to 2023 led to the acquisitions of Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford, Brandin Cooks, and Jalen Ramsey, key pieces in the team’s run to Super Bowl LIII and their victory in Super Bowl LVI, it left the cupboard bare, especially on defense.
Problems for Snead compounded as he was without the picks he traded for a half-year rental of Von Miller while the signing of Bobby Wagner turned out to be a failure. With the majority of his money tied up with veteran players who were either hurt or not performing to standard, the 2022 season was a dud that almost saw Sean McVay trade in his coaching career for a lucrative sportscasting opportunity.
Snead took his gamble, he won and now he had to pull off an even bigger gamble yet. Rebuild the Rams without making it look like a rebuild.
The Wall Street Journal released a recent article talking about how the 2024 Rams’ defense is powered by a bunch of college football rejects. Jared Verse was overlooked before he became a sack machine at Albany, Braden Fiske was once an unknown defensive tackle from Western Michigan, Kobie Turner was at Wake Forest, Jaylen McCollough, Omar Speights, and Josh Wallace are all undrafted rookie free agents and most of the Rams’ defensive…
