Though a good portion of the Rams’ Super Bowl roster in 2021 was homegrown, Los Angeles brought in a lot of outside talent to make that push toward a championship. Two years later, that bill is coming due and the Rams are feeling the pain of it ahead of the 2023 season.
The Patriots have had their share of big-name free-agent signings under Bill Belichick but they haven’t been nearly as aggressive as the Rams and Buccaneers were in the last few years. And if you ask the Patriots coach/GM, that all-in approach isn’t sustainable.
“Temporarily you can, but you can’t sustain it, no,” Belichick said via Mass Live. “You can’t sustain the 20 years of success that we sustained by overspending every year without having to eventually pay those bills and play with a lesser team. So I think if you look at the teams that have done that, that’s kind of where some of them ended up. Jacksonville back in ‘14, the Rams are going through it, Tampa is going through it now. So, I’m not saying there’s anything right or wrong with it. It’s just a different way of doing things and there’s the results for doing that.”
There isn’t a person in the Rams’ building that would trade their Super Bowl ring for a 10-6 season in 2022 instead of the 5-12 year they went through. Rings are what every team strives for each year and the Rams won theirs – and reached a Super Bowl just three years prior, too.
There’s no question Les Snead and Sean McVay are feeling the pain of their push for a championship, but it was all worth it in the end. Trading for Jalen Ramsey, trading for Matthew Stafford, trading for Von Miller, trading for Sony Michel, signing Odell Beckham Jr. – it was all worth it.
The cost just might be a year or two of struggling to contend before big money comes off the books and they have some available cap space in 2024 and 2025.
