Rams bid emotional farewell to Rodger Saffold as team welcomes Eric Weddle

Hello, goodbye: Rams bid emotional farewell to Rodger Saffold as team welcomes Eric Weddle

Vincent Bonsignore

https://theathletic.com/865408/2019/03/13/hello-goodbye-rams-bid-emotional-farewell-to-rodger-saffold-as-team-welcomes-eric-weddle/

The fine line between pain and joy is often finite in professional sports. A pack of players can be found celebrating a big win on one part of the football field, while a few feet away their opponents are consoling one another after a gut-wrenching loss.
Same coin. Two distinctly different sides.
That emotional line got a little blurred once again on Tuesday in Thousand Oaks as the Rams simultaneously celebrated the arrival of veteran safety Eric Weddle while also hugging out their goodbyes with old friend and long-time soldier Rodger Saffold.
When it comes to made men, no one is more entrenched with the Rams than Saffold, their longest-tenured player and a huge presence, both in their locker room and on the field.
But in the hard-capped world that NFL teams operate in, feelings have to get pushed aside sometimes in pursuit of building a roster that adheres to the rules in place.
The 30-year-old Saffold’s free-agent market expanded beyond the Rams’ present and future salary cap calculations, and when the Tennessee Titans swooped in with a reported four-year, $44 million offer with $22 million guaranteed, the Rams had to respectfully bow out.
They have an in-house back-up plan in Joseph Noteboom, who they invested a third-round pick in last year and quietly developed behind the scenes for this very scenario. But while Noteboom’s drafting and development covers the on-field side of Saffold’s departure, the human element is a whole other matter.
Saffold, who has known only Rams colors in his nine-year career and for whom last year’s Super Bowl run was particularly poignant, came out to the Rams facility on Tuesday to respectfully bid farewell to coaches and staff members he’s known for nearly a decade.

If you can separate the professional and personal side of the often cruel world of professional sports, you can understand how those two emotions are often at odds. So while there was happiness for Saffold the friend for securing a big contract, a noticeable tinge of sadness over losing that friend and player could also be felt.
Saffold isn’t the only player leaving the Rams. They all but confirmed Ndamukong Suh will be leaving, while safety Lamarcus Joyner will sign with the Oakland Raiders when free agency officially opens on Wednesday.
Saffold, though, represents a big chunk of the Rams’ recent past, having survived some of the worst years in St. Louis, the move to Los Angeles and the horrible first step in L.A. in 2016, and the dramatic turnaround over the last two years.
All that considered, watching Saffold make his way through the Rams’ building on Tuesday to bid farewell was understandably emotional.
As all that played out, the Rams were welcoming Weddle to the family. The acquisition of the veteran safety covers a major need for the Rams — at a reasonable price considering how the safety market has escalated in the past 48 hours — while also returning Weddle to his Southern California roots. He grew up in the Inland Empire and played nine seasons with the then-San Diego Chargers before playing the last three years with the Baltimore Ravens.
Weddle fortuitously became available to the Rams last week when the Ravens released him in a salary-cap savings move. The nature of that transaction meant the Rams could immediately go to work on signing him rather than waiting until Monday when teams could officially talk to pending free agents league wide. The Rams acted quickly to secure a visit with Weddle, and during a dinner meeting that included Rams head coach Sean McVay, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips and left tackle Andrew Whitworth, an instantaneous and mutual connection was established. After dinner, Weddle huddled with his East Coast-based agent over the phone and by the next day, all that remained was some haggling over the contract details.
Knowing the ways of the NFL and how creating cap space sometimes means parting ways with productive players, the Rams intuitively kept their eye on the Weddle situation in Baltimore and instinctively thought there might be a chance he’d be available.
And understanding their own situation — four starters were hitting free agency as well as valuable back-up running back C.J. Anderson — McVay and Rams general manager Les Snead talked through the possibility of Weddle as a piece they could quickly acquire in order to move their overall plan forward.
“So we talked about how being able to acquire Eric would then change some of the approaches that we can take as we move forward and navigate through the rest of the offseason,” McVay said. “Ultimately, trying to find the most competitive roster we can have. He and I discussed some things we felt like that if it was something that he wanted to be here, we would be able to work through that. And I think it was more along the lines of us just being able to communicate how did we anticipate this would play out and if it was something that we felt good about.”
In other words, the Rams were ready to act as soon as Weddle hit the open market.
“Then that enabled us to be more aggressive in saying, ‘Why don’t we get him here if it’s something that this is where he wants to be,” McVay said. “We think we can get it worked out.’”
From Weddle’s perspective, the chance to return home, an opportunity to compete for a Super Bowl championship and the fact the Rams had a pending opening at safety with Joyner’s expected loss represented a perfect fit.
“From the onset, when you get a game plan together and think what the future holds – obviously the Rams were my No. 1 destination to fill the void of where they were with Lamarcus, who I’m actually very close with and excited for him and his future,” Weddle said. “And the dynamic of their team, where they’ve been, the success they’ve had and obviously the system that coaches that I’ve been coached under. This is really a great opportunity for myself to continue my dream and the challenge and desire to go out and be the best and to earn the respect of my teammates and the coaches and to earn a starting job.”
The Rams’ interest in Weddle, though, extends beyond his release from the Ravens. McVay, a long-time fan, developed even more respect for Weddle last summer when the Rams and Ravens practiced together for two days in hot, steamy Owings Mills, Maryland. It was an intense setting featuring two teams that would eventually make the playoffs, and to say the players got after each other would be an understatement.
McVay, who in spirit seems to be cut from the same cloth as Weddle, oversaw the Rams offense while a few feet away Weddle quarterbacked the Ravens defense. In between carrying out his own duties, McVay couldn’t help but admire what a kindred spirit like Weddle was doing with his team.
“You can watch his tape and you can just see the visual communication and the mastery and understanding of disguises and what he wants to get done. This is somebody that knows what’s going on for all 11 people,” McVay said. “But then I think when you go practice against him and you can stand where there’s a quarterback and you’re about five feet behind you can hear, as if you’re on the field, some of the intricacies of his communication of the command that he has and it gives you that much more communication.”
At his core, Sean McVay is a football junkie. He often jokes that his brain has just enough room to fit everything he knows about football into it with just a little bit of room for everything else. Upon meeting with Weddle over dinner he saw some similar qualities.
“Anytime you meet somebody that you respect what they’re all about and there’s a mutual connection on the passion for football, there was an easy vibe.”
Across the table, Weddle felt exactly the same.
“Sean and I probably talked four or five hours over Thursday and Friday, just everything – football, life, people, players, scheme. It was great to see the guy behind the guy. We just see him on TV or interviews, but to actually get to know him on a personal level was impressive,” Weddle said. “To see his confidence, but also his humility in the same sentence is hard to find in people. His personality and mine, it was like we were talking to each other. It was really weird at times, but it was awesome. I knew after a short time that we were going to mesh. The thing about head coaches is you want them to be up front and honest with you at all times as a player. You don’t want to be given the easy answer. Just tell me how it is. If I’m stinking the place up, let me know. Let me know what I need to fix and then I’ll get to work on it. Or if you’re doing good, then that’s great. With him, I got that from the onset. He’s genuine. He’s honest, he’s loyal.”
It was a happy day for Weddle. It was a happy day for the Rams.
And also a sad one.
But then, that’s the nature of professional sports sometimes.