Rams extend Hav

Joe Curley@vcsjoecurley
Rams lock in another piece that was questionable going forward. Rams were in a situation where any or all of the five starting OL spots could turn over next season

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Ian Rapoport@RapSheet
The #Rams and RT Rob Havenstein agreed to terms on a 4-year extension, the team announced, and source said it’s worth more than $32M. He was a priority, especially considering his role in paving the way for Todd Gurley.

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Solid move for the Rams. Over the last 3 years Havenstein has played 2698 snaps at RT and rated as a "good starter" with a 75.1 grade. That's 11th among RT's with over 2000 snaps. https://t.co/6IEkKiDR5Z

— Neil Hornsby (@PFF_Neil) August 20, 2018

Zooey wrote:

I like it, (though I am curious where that puts him on the RT salary list. It sound reasonable to me).

Brown is staying next to him for a couple more years at least. If we can keep Saffold, too, and that seems promising based on what he said this week, we have a lot of both Blue Chip and Red Chip players under contract for a good stretch of time. This OL appears to have depth and a steal in Noteboom as future LT. And the core players are all young.

In fact, I do not remember the Rams ever being positioned this strongly since the origin of the salary cap.

I’m feeling like I just acquired a high performance sports car, and I am free to go.

Good post. I agree on the high note part. Yep things are looking as good as they could at this point.

Some more things. Don’t mind me, you got me tah thinkin.

Chances are by keeping Hav that means they’re not keeping Brown. He;s a FA after this season. Looks like Brown is a goner. Depending on what else happens, Demby could develop (he’s not starting out bad at all), Noteboom looks very solid but he might be needed elsewhere, they could draft a guy (they have 4 picks in rounds 1-3), and maybe one of the aspiring ronin/udfa types could mature into the role (thinking of guys like Neary, Eldrencamp–it’s a long and right now not that distinguished list).

Whitworth and Sullivan are both getting up there but Noteboom looks promising and in a different way so does Allen.

2019 is supposed to be a good OL draft and my bet is, they will have to hit it for that.

Saffold? A wildcard. He may sign for low but even if he does, we’re talking 5-6 M, which is what I see looking at comparable guys of the same age who signed for a bit less.

Hav’s contract puts him at 3rd right now for ROTs. He’s not really the 3rd best ROT in the league but that’s not how contracts work. Decent ROTs of his caliber were signing for 7+ to 8 M last year. High end is the Eagles’s Lane Johnson at 11+ M but he is a big exception. In comparison to all OTs in general, 8 M puts Hav at about 22nd, but then good LOTs just earn a lot more than ROTs so that’s never a valid comparison. Every single LOT who gets more than Hav could play ROT at least as well as him and probably better, and Hav couldn’t play LOT.

I have mixed feelings about this signing but as mixed feelings go it’s lowkey. I think Hav is at the high end of middle of the pack as a right OT, and ROTs are not that hard to replace. By saying if he’s 11th best you were fine with that indicates you are not quibbling about this, and I;m not the opposite of that but I am quibbling just a bit. It wouldn’t be what I did but then it’s also not a bad decision either. Both the best and the worst that can be said about signing Hav is that there’s really nothing wrong with it.

In terms of continuity, after this year, there won’t be much. IF Whit and Sullivan still play, and if they keep Saffold, then yes they have Hav, and with those 4 in place that is the high end of possible continuity, but just for 2019. But any 1 of those other three are gone next year, and that could be up to possibly all 3 of them gone, and if goes that way then it;s Hav and Noteboom, and they’re really starting over on the OL with Hav being the one continuing veteran. That’s common in the NFL…old fashioned OL continuity kind of went away with the pre-cap/free agency era. So it’s pretty common around the league.