During their Super Bowl victory parade back in February, Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead was famously seen wearing a shirt said colorfully illustrated his strategy for dealing early draft picks for established stars.
This ideology clearly turned out well for Snead and the Rams, who parlayed some blockbuster deals into star players who had a huge impact on winning a ring.
But how much of an impact did those moves actually have? Have other teams used a similar strategy, and to what degree of success? Was the Rams’ title run just as much a result of other moves that flew under the radar by comparison?
If you truly dig into the heart of that Super Bowl run, there are a few key contributors that stick out for the defending champs. Funnily enough, there’s no consensus path they all took to this roster.
You have drafted players like Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp, who were both in contention for Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year, respectively. You have Matthew Stafford, Von Miller, and Jalen Ramsey, who were all involved in those big trades that sent away three first-round draft picks and a handful of Day 2 picks. You have free-agent additions like Odell Beckham Jr. and Andrew Whitworth, both of whom were instrumental in getting the Rams to the top of the football mountain last year.
So while the star players acquired via trade certainly put a nice bow on the Rams’ excellent team-building up to that point, it was ultimately a combination of those factors, and would simply not have happened had the Rams also not hit big on excellent talent in the draft.
There’s also an argument to be made for just how important it is to maintain a solid rotation of successful draft picks coming through the door each year. It adds depth, allows players to develop on cheaper contracts, and prevents the floor from falling out from underneath you. Should some of that talent slip away, you still have that depth, and the ability to replace declining veterans.
To put it simply, the more draft picks you have, the more likely you are to hit on players that can come up big for you in an economical way. That keeps you from being susceptible to the ultimate fallout from aging talent and other departures, which the Rams may very well be experiencing this season.
The most proven way to build a successful roster still requires you to succeed across the board in many different ways: Hit on your draft picks, understand when to deal players for more draft capital, and occasionally make the splashy trade or signing to put the team over the top. This has been shown by multiple teams in the NFL with sustained success who aren’t in danger of the floor falling out from under them, such as the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs, and Philadelphia Eagles.
The Rams’ strategy obviously paid off for them with a championship, but other teams that might want to copy that plan need to realize that it might only have worked because they were successful in other areas of the team-building process.
Ship off them picks at your own risk.
