The Rams Kept Their Super Bowl Window Open in a Way the Eagles Should Have
After the longest season in NFL history, the Los Angeles Rams are the last team standing and are the 2021 Super Bowl champions. How this somewhat relates to the Eagles is that there was a time in 2016 and 2017 when both franchises laid the foundation for a long stretch of success. Both drafted a quarterback within the top 2 of the 2016 NFL draft and both hired the right head coach for them: Doug Pederson in 2016 and Sean McVay in 2017. What was impressive about both rebuilds is that both teams got good fairly quickly.
Their epic matchup near the end of the 2017 season was one of the great regular season wins in Eagles history but was also one of the most consequential. Carson Wentz’s sensational MVP-caliber season came to an abrupt end when he tore his ACL and he was never the same again. Jared Goff, the quarterback the Rams took with the top pick in 2016, had a solid start to his career once Sean McVay arrived, but after a miserable performance in Super Bowl LIII he quickly fell out of favor with the Rams. What’s interesting about the fact that although both quarterbacks the Rams and Eagles got in 2016 ultimately didn’t work out, both teams still got a Super Bowl championship out of their rebuild. In the Eagles case they built a Dream Team of mercenaries who were strong enough to continue after Wentz’s injury to win the Super Bowl.
Although the Rams lost their first Super Bowl appearance in the McVay era, they kept their Super Bowl window open by pulling off some of the boldest and riskiest moves in recent NFL history. They traded countless 1st Round picks for Matthew Stafford and Jalen Ramsey, traded two 2nd Round picks for Von Miller and signed Odell Beckham Jr. when he became a free agent. It helped that they drafted megastars in the past like Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp, but giving up those high draft picks for those additional players was a gamble that paid off with a Lombardi trophy.
While both teams have won a Super Bowl over the past five years, the Rams have obviously have been more successful in that time span. A big reason why Los Angeles kept their Super Bowl window open after losing it in 2018 is because they made the big moves which made them better. General Manager Les Snead hammered that message home at the parade when he wore a tee shirt with the words “F*** Them Picks.”
This bold strategy is what Howie Roseman and the Eagles probably should have done to keep their Super Bowl window open. Instead, the veterans who led the team in 2017 left and most of those who were drafted or signed didn’t come close to filling in that void. Looking back on it, it totally would have been worth giving up 1st Round picks on proven players and paying them to help the Eagles remain in contention. The team that gets the best player in the deal wins the trade, and most of the time the best player in the trade is the established veteran.
Why not trade two 1st rounders and pay Jalen Ramsey? He would instantly become the best cornerback in franchise history, or at least since Eric Allen. Why not sign the troubled but talented wide receiver? Even if they were destructive they would still be better than almost every wide receiver over the past 15 years. Although this type of strategy was somewhat attempted in 2011 and it blew up in their faces, there was a better foundation in the late 2010s to acclimate the new players into the Eagles system.
Rather than make bold moves to keep their Super Bowl window open, they relied on the draft and the usual free agent signings which mostly didn’t work out. A team that was barely a playoff team in 2018 and 2019 bottomed out in 2020 and forced the Eagles to start over. While it’s nice to have all these first round picks at this year’s draft, it would have been way more fun to get big-time players to keep the Eagles in the mix of contention. Maybe Carson Wentz and Doug Pederson are still here if those moves were made and we’d continue the quest for another championship with those guys. Instead, we all have to wait and see if those in charge of the Eagles now can take them back to that level.