If it was easy to buy a championship, it would happen far more often. That it doesn’t happen far more often isn’t from a lack of effort on those owners, executives, and coaches who decide to throw all kinds of money and draft capital at their roster problems.
“Dream teams” are nightmares more often than not. What you usually wind up with is salary cap purgatory and a long loss of draft picks that can impact your franchise for years after the failed attempt.
So how did the Los Angeles Rams get away with it? After all, that’s what they did, right? Spending all those picks on Jalen Ramsey and Matthew Stafford? Mortgaging their futures by trading for short-term gap players who may or may not work out?
That’s the surface version. In truth, the Rams’ approach was risky and unconventional, but it worked with a Super Bowl LVI win over the Cincinnati Bengals for a number of reasons, and it’s not just the big-ticket stuff.
General manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay were always in on the long-term ramifications of the short-term fixes, and that has been all the difference.
“I think when you break through, at that point, there is your window,” Snead recently told Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic. “What are you going to do with it, how are you going to take advantage of it? How can you make it last, how can you make the most of it?
“The math says you should probably start thinking a little bit differently than the other 31 about the bets you make once you get there. Is it better to stay and pick late in the first round because we are a team that wins, or is it better to use that pick for a top-5 talent like Jalen, who has lived up to the billing?
“If it’s inevitable, make it immediate.”
The Rams have been questioned for their immediacy, but they won Super Bowl LVI because of their philosophy — a mindset that permeates every aspect of the organization, and allowed this team to be built the right way from top to bottom.
How did the Rams beat the odds? By playing their own game to perfection.
