NFL: The Los Angeles Rams trade away too much to obtain Jared Goff as the number one overall pick in the 2016 draft.
By Brandon Byrne, Staff Writer
On April 28th, all National Football League (NFL) franchises attended the 81st annual NFL Draft to determine where all of next year’s rookies will play. With an NFL-worst 2-14 record, the Tennessee Titans laid claim to the first pick, but dealt the pick in one of the most historic deals in the NFL. The Titans shipped the first pick, along with their fourth and sixth round picks to the Los Angeles (LA) Rams, and in exchange, the Titans received the Rams’s first round pick, both of their second round picks, and their third round pick in this year’s draft, as well as the Rams’s first and third round picks in the 2017 draft.
That makes this deal clearly a major success for Tennessee, who are sorely lacking in many areas on their team. These picks can supplement their roster, helping to make the Titans a title contender for the first time since 2002. It’s a different story for the Rams. This deal keeps them from adding any major contributors to next year’s team, with quarterback Jared Goff being the only exception. Even though the Rams certainly do need a quarterback, it is still not a smart move because quarterbacks coming out of college into the NFL are notoriously unpredictable; for what they gave away, it is not worth the risk of an investment that might as well be a crapshoot.
For the past ten years, the Rams have been a losing team, but have been on track to make a comeback. Throughout the 2000’s, the Rams were the laughingstock of the league, winning only four or five games per season. Since then, however, LA has made some serious changes. They have acquired stars like Robert Quinn, Alec Ogletree, Todd Gurley, and Aaron Donald, and have surpassed many obstacles towards becoming a respectable team. However, the major thing that has prevented the Rams from ascending to the next level has been the play of their quarterback. Sam Bradford, the Rams’s number one overall pick in 2008, was a serviceable player, but was too injury-prone to make much of a tangible difference. With this precedence, one would expect the Rams to exhibit some reservation in committing so much to draft a young quarterback, of placing their hopes into the hands of a rookie that has yet to actually play in an NFL-style offense. Alas, such logic is lost on a franchise with rose-tinted glasses.
There is such a significant precedent of quarterbacks in the past decade that have parlayed excellent college careers into a first round investment, only to underperform and go down in history as a massive embarrassment to the franchise. The most recent example of this was in 2014, when the Cleveland Browns drafted Johnny Manziel, a Heisman Trophy winner and a truly transcendent football player, in the first round. He only lasted two years with the Browns. Not long before him, the Washington Redskins made a similar gamble as the Rams when they traded a total of seven picks for the right to draft another Heisman Trophy winner, Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. Griffin had one successful season before an injury derailed his career, prompting the Redskins to start Kirk Cousins, who was drafted in the fourth round of the same year. But perhaps the most egregious example of a quarterback bust is evident in the career of JaMarcus Russell. Spurred by an amazing performance in the Sugar Bowl at Louisiana State University (LSU), the Oakland Raiders took a gamble on him with the number one overall pick in 2007, passing on future star Calvin Johnson. Russell averaged only 93 passing yards per game and battled weight problems throughout his brief career. He was released only two years later.The Rams are basically making the same mistake that they made in 2010, when they drafted Sam Bradford for the first pick of the draft. He was usually sent out injured on the Rams, but when he wasn’t, he was still complete and utter garbage. Ever since he was drafted, they haven’t had a good quarterback to lead them to success, so now the Rams have pinned their hopes on the unproven Jared Goff. The better alternative would have been to sign a free agent who has already demonstrated their ability in the NFL.
The Rams had a few options for a starting quarterback that would have been much safer than giving up so much for Goff. There were three options that would have been able to hold their own: Brock Osweiler, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Kirk Cousins. Brock Osweiler played well for the Broncos; he displayed the power behind his arm that resulted in a fairly productive offense. Ryan Fitzpatrick exhibited his worthiness when he nearly brought the Jets to a playoff appearance after a very strong season. Kirk Cousins would have been another reasonable choice because he is very productive in making short gains of ten yards or less and is very mobile. I understand that the Rams wanted to invigorate their franchise after moving from St. Louis to Los Angeles, but risking the future for nothing more than a marketing ploy is nothing short of irresponsible.