Anthony Bafaro
Thanks to being protected by the St. Louis Cardinals from
the local media, and being protected by their own utter irrelevance from the
national media, very few questions were raised by any weighted member of the
press as to why an 0-5 team would trade anything at all for a 30 year old
receiver in a walk year. It’s clear that
this team is several years away from contending for a championship. Once you’ve accepted that, you have to start
shedding valuable players that aren’t part of the long term picture instead of
adding them.
The minute the Rams passed on interior offensive lineman
Mike Pouncey to take Robert Quinn in this year’s draft, James Hall should have
been on the block. How else do you justify
drafting a defensive end there. This is
not some elite team that has the luxury of drafting depth players in the first
round. This team needed to upgrade ten
or eleven starters with a focus on Bradford and the passing game. If Robert Quinn was so good that he just had to be taken there, then he should’ve
been good enough start over Hall.
Instead, Quinn is still only getting half as many snaps as Hall, because
he isn’t good against the run. That
makes sense; I mean we wouldn’t want to disrupt the great string of Spartan
shields that is the Rams run defense (They’re allowing 185 yards rushing a
game. It’s perfectly legitimate to pick
up third string running backs in a fantasy league as long as they’re going against the
Rams; how embarrassing is that?). If
Quinn isn’t good enough against the run to be part of this run defense, then he didn’t deserve to be drafted in the first
round. Let him learn to play against the
run by playing him against the run; that’s the only option right now if you
have any self respect as a GM or coach. Run
him out there until he can’t move, then give Hall a snap. Hall is 34 years old. He's in the second to last year of his deal
that hits the cap for $3.4 million per year; that’s a movable number. Trading
him probably would have drawn a fifth or sixth round pick at the deadline and
would have opened up some cap space.
Whoever is in charge of personnel this off season needs to unload James’
salary and put it towards the signing of a young starter.
Steven Jackson turned twenty-eight in July of this year. Most backs of his caliber find themselves
falling back to the curve, or further, when they reach the fatal age of
thirty. Unless you think the Rams are
going to make a Super Bowl run next season, it’s disrespectful to both the fan
base and to Steven Jackson to have to watch his abilities waste away on a
hopeless team. The move should’ve been
made coming into the year, it should have been made again at the deadline, and
it must be made this off-season.
Hopefully he’d garner a 2nd or 3rd round pick and
possibly an additional late pick. Trading him would also relieve
the cap of $9.7 million per year which he is set to make through the 2013
season. That daunting cap hit may make
it difficult to trade him, but having just under $4 million left in guaranteed
money, maybe he’d be willing to restructure in order to play for a
contender. He’s putting up 4.9 yards
per carry behind a below average run blocking line and a passing attack that
frightens no one. You can’t tell me that the
Lions, Cowboys, or Jets, wouldn’t have at least been willing to talk. Steven is still an elite back if he’s on good team. He’s the type of player that can turn a top
ten team into a Super Bowl favorite, but that’s not what the Rams are. On this team, his inflated salary, deserving
demand for touches, and short shelf life are all road blocks on the way to an sound rebuilding process. Trading him is what
is best for all parties involved.
I know that moving two of the better players on this team
seems counter-intuitive. I know that the
term “rebuild” is not something that Rams fans want to hear again, but that’s
not the way to look at it. Last season
was a façade that made a lot of people, including the Rams front office, think
that the process was almost over. The
truth is, with Bradford in his second year, it’s just beginning. Peyton Manning was good out of the gate, but
he didn't win a playoff game until year six (all six years in the same system). Prior to Peyton's second season the Colts traded 26 year old Marshall Faulk for 2nd and 5th round draft picks. They replaced Faulk with 21 year
old running back Edgerrin James in the first round. They used the 2nd round pick from
the trade to draft current Falcon linebacker Mike Peterson, and the 5th round pick to draft defensive end Brad Scioli, who played six years with the team as both a starter and a backup. They knew they
needed to put a young team in place that could grow with Peyton, so they traded some prime, expensive talent for some young, potential talent. It’s time for the Rams to show that kind of foresight; sacrifice a short term chance at mediocrity for a long term chance at
dominance.
