Rams trading for Ramsey

Bucky Brooks@BuckyBrooks
Some execs fall for the trap of valuing picks > players. It’s hard to draft a Top 5 pick that PLAYS like a Top 5 player. @Jaguars better get it right on the next 2 draft nights because Ramsey is a premier player and those are not easy to find.

Albert Breer@AlbertBreer
Upside: Cooks is 26, Goff is 25, Ramsey is 24, and each is now a known commodity.

Downside: You give up cost-controlled assets, and Cooks and Goff are on top-of-the-market deals, and Ramsey should be soon, carrying an amazing amount of leverage.

Grading the Jalen Ramsey trade from the Jaguars to Rams: Who won?

Bill Barnwell

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/27854971/grading-jalen-ramsey-trade-jaguars-rams-won

The Rams rebuilt their cornerback depth chart Tuesday. In addition to putting veteran Aqib Talib on injured reserve, they traded away one former All-Pro cornerback Marcus Peters to the Ravens and then acquired another in Jaguars standout Jalen Ramsey. It’s clear they didn’t get what they wanted when they traded a second-round pick and a swap of selections in 2018 to the Chiefs for Peters; is this trade likely to go better?

I’m not surprised that L.A. traded Peters and made a move for Ramsey. I suggested last week that they could make both these moves, though I put them together as part of a swap sending Peters to Jacksonville. Over the past few years, the Rams have repeatedly used their top draft picks to target talented players still on rookie deals. If the draft is full of uncertainty, the Rams’ solution is to wait and see who pans out and trade their picks accordingly.

The problem with that philosophy, though, has already begun to rear its head for this team in 2019. As constructed before the Ramsey trade, this Rams roster had major holes along the offensive line and at edge rusher and cornerback. Injuries have deprived them of several key contributors in Talib, Clay Matthews and Todd Gurley, but those are also two 33-year-olds and a running back with knee issues. Building a roster in which a team is counting on those guys to stay healthy is a risky proposition.

In lieu of drafting and developing a cornerback with a first-round pick, the Rams have now committed two first-round picks and a second-round pick to solving a point of weakness on their roster. Cornerback was a problem for them, and Ramsey should be a major upgrade on Peters, whose inconsistency had grown exhausting. It’s one thing to get overmatched by a superior receiver; it’s another to stop running against Mike Evans in man coverage.

Trading for Ramsey could transform the Rams’ defense. According to ESPN’s coverage analysis from the NFL’s Next Gen data, the Rams have played some version of a man-to-man concept in their secondary on just 34% of their snaps in 2019, down from 41% in 2018 and 53% in 2017. Ramsey’s desire to play in a man scheme and take out the opposing team’s No. 1 wideout is well-known. I would suspect that trading for Ramsey will encourage defensive coordinator Wade Phillips to send more pressure and play tight man coverage behind.

In a vacuum, should you want Ramsey on your team? Of course. He’s a 24-year-old cornerback with Hall of Fame-caliber ability. For whatever complaints some might have about his attitude after showing up to camp in an armored bank truck, I don’t recall guys like Deion Sanders or Ty Law acting like choir boys when it came to their contracts, and their teams still won plenty of games.

Ramsey might not be at Sanders’ level, but since the start of 2017, the former first-round pick has allowed a passer rating of just 56.2% on throws in which he was the closest defender in coverage. The only corner with a better rating over 400-plus coverage snaps is his former Jags teammate A.J. Bouye. Ramsey is first in average yards allowed per target and sixth in coverage success rate over that time frame. He’s capable of playing both on the outside and in the slot. The Rams are getting a superstar.

Right now, though, I’m not sure what the Rams need is a superstar. They already have as talented of an inner core as any team in the league, but after trading away so many high draft picks over the past few years, what they lack is depth. Even after trading for Ramsey, they have a question on the opposite side of the field at cornerback in Troy Hill, who will presumably be filling in for Talib. The Rams could bring back Talib for the postseason, but he’s a free agent after the season. L.A. has 2019 third-rounder David Long on the roster, but if it was confident Long was going to step in and be an immediate contributor, it wouldn’t have traded two first-round picks for Ramsey.

When the Rams made previous sorts of trades to go get Peters, Sammy Watkins and Brandin Cooks, they were in a fundamentally different financial situation. Watkins was acquired before the Rams had paid Aaron Donald. Peters and Cooks came before Gurley and Jared Goff were locked up on massive contracts. Cooks has his own deal now. The Gurley deal looks to be a major mistake, and while it’s still impossible to make any sort of declaration about the Goff deal, the early returns have not been promising.

Ramsey, who’s under contract through 2020, will require his own massive extension, and after trading two first-round picks to acquire him, the Rams won’t have a credible case for holding out on a deal. He will become the highest-paid cornerback in football history, either now or after the season. The team was already going to have issues building a useful roster around its core. That core is about to get much more expensive.

By trading two first-round picks, though, the Rams lose out on the two best ways they could have supplemented their roster with the sort of cheap, young talent every team needs. They have no clear path to replacing star left tackle Andrew Whitworth, whose decline in 2019 has badly affected the offense’s viability. There’s no way for them to draft a top-tier edge rusher to either supplement or replace edge rusher Dante Fowler Jr., who will be tough to retain. A first-round pick would have come in handy to replace Talib or safety Eric Weddle. All of that assumes everything goes right and the Rams don’t ever need or want to replace someone like Goff, Ramsey or Cooks.

Sean McVay and the Rams are going all-in for 2019 with their trade for Jalen Ramsey. Jae C. Hong/AP Photo
This is the sort of move a team makes if it’s one star cornerback away from winning a Super Bowl. The Rams probably think that’s where they are, even after their three-game losing streak. Investing assets on the defensive side of the ball and trusting Sean McVay to figure out the offense makes sense, but it’s a little too late after they spent most of the past two years investing their money in offensive talent. It wouldn’t shock me if Ramsey helped turn around a defense that ranks 31st in Total QBR allowed over the past three weeks, but the Rams realistically have to win a championship for this trade to pay off.

As for the other side of this deal, it’s clear that the Jaguars finally gave in. Jaguars owner Shahid Khan didn’t want to make this deal. After the initial disagreement Ramsey had with coach Doug Marrone and the subsequent disagreement Ramsey had afterward with a member of the Jaguars staff that led to his trade request, Jacksonville publicly supported Ramsey and encouraged him to return to the fold. It was only after Khan met with Ramsey and publicly said Ramsey would play in Week 6 — only for Ramsey to sit out against the Saints — that the team made its move.

There’s no joy in trading away star players. Ramsey was the best player Dave Caldwell selected during his time as general manager. Ramsey was a Florida State product and a building block with the sort of attitude that resonated with fans in the state. Jacksonville’s defense has given up a passer rating of 81.7 with Ramsey on the field and 89.9 without its stud cornerback since he entered the league. Trading him away gives the Jaguars more financial flexibility as they prepare to re-sign pass-rusher Yannick Ngakoue, but the chances of these draft picks delivering a player as good as Ramsey are slim. The Rams needed depth, not another star. You might argue the opposite for the Jaguars.

Jacksonville will move forward with Bouye and Tre Herndon at cornerback, with the latter drawing plenty of attention from opposing quarterbacks since taking over for Ramsey. Gardner Minshew has earned plaudits since taking over for Nick Foles, but it’s still too early to say anything about his long-term viability. Foles still has more than $21.1 million in practical guarantees remaining on his current deal with the team, but the Jags now have four first-round picks over the next two years. If they fall in love with a highly regarded quarterback and want to move up, they have as much ammunition to make a deal as any other team in the league outside of Florida.

After committing significant resources via the draft and in free agency to building a dominant defense, the Jaguars can now also reposition and commit more toward finding pieces on the offensive side of the ball around breakout wideout DJ Chark.

I also don’t love the move to simultaneously deal Peters to the Ravens for a fifth-round pick and linebacker Kenny Young, who started three games this season before being benched. Young gives the Rams a backup linebacker with some potential, and Phillips has a track record of turning unproven linebackers into stars, but the legendary defensive coordinator could turn a typical late-round pick into a similarly-impactful contributor.

Selling low on Peters doesn’t do the Rams many favors. It’s hard to figure that he would have been less valuable to the 2019 team than Young and a future fifth-round, especially given Talib’s injury. It’s possible that the Rams were just over the oft-frustrating corner and wanted to move him at whatever cost, but having him on the roster as a third or fourth cornerback seems as if it would have been worth it for a team with championship ambitions.

The Rams could have netted a compensatory pick from another team if they had simply held onto Peters and let him leave in free agency; this deal gets the Rams the pick in 2020 as opposed to 2021. Trading him created some cap space that the Rams probably will use in Ramsey’s extension later, but they could have created more room if necessary by restructuring some of their existing deals.

For the Ravens, they unsurprisingly make a logical move. Trading for Peters lets them take a flier for the remainder of the season on a player with an All-Pro ceiling. Baltimore’s secondary has been disappointing this season, primarily owing to injuries to Jimmy Smith and Tavon Young, the latter of whom is out for the year. Peters probably will step in for Maurice Canady in the short-term, and the Ravens will be the ones to net a compensatory pick if they decide to move on from Peters in 2020.

from Jalen Ramsey gives the Rams a lockdown cornerback — if he’s used correctly

Doug Farrar

Jalen Ramsey gives the Rams a lockdown cornerback — if he's used correctly

When the Rams traded Marcus Peters to the Ravens and put Aqib Talib on injured reserve over the last two days, you knew something else was coming at the cornerback position. General manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay have been too aggressive through their tenures to let their secondary go to a bunch of young guys with undetermined futures.

And in true fashion, Snead and his crew went all in once again, trading their first-round picks over the next two years, and a fourth-round pick for the services of ex-Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey. Ramsey, who hasn’t played since Week 3 and has openly expressed his dissatisfaction with his former franchise, should have a quick reversal of fortune regarding his recent back issues. And in a schematic sense, it’s a perfect fit between scheme and player regarding what the Rams want to do.

Defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, who’s used to dealing with mercurial personalities (Peters certainly qualified), now has another perfect cornerback for the type of aggressive man coverage he likes to see on the field. And in his time with Peters, Phillips also is used to a top-level cornerback who can be just as lockdown as he is inconsistent.

That’s the thing. The Rams have a defensive star who can shut down opposing top receivers and may be the missing piece that makes for at least a deep playoff run, if Jared Goff can manage to play with any credibility this season. They also have a player with obvious physical assets and obvious physical limitations (not to mention some really interesting personality quirks), and that team will have to work around all of that. They also will have to pay him sooner than later, as his current contract runs through 2020.

Ramsey, the Jaguars’ fifth overall pick in the 2016 draft out of Florida State, has become one of the league’s better matchup corners in specific situations. He’s also been tested by opposing offensive coordinators to defend quicker receivers on short, varied angular routes, and that doesn’t always go so well. Given Ramsey’s alpha personality and competitive temperament, it’s not surprising that he had a couple of flare-ups in Jacksonville’s 13-12 loss to the Texans last Sunday. Ramsey has been straddling the balance between competitive equipoise and incendiary displays of that temperament throughout his career.

This particular incident with head coach Doug Marrone, however, presaged a trade request from Ramsey. Marrone hadn’t challenged a DeAndre Hopkins catch, and Ramsey was not amused.

“Let’s be clear about something in regards to that: I didn’t leak that information,” Ramsey said regarding the trade request. “Me and my agent [David Mulugheta], we are not the ones who leaked that information. And I was very strict about that because I did not want it to get out. I didn’t want to be a distraction. I didn’t want everybody asking my teammates all type of questions throughout the week, so let me real clear about that.

“Me and my team, we was not the one that leaked that information because I thought about my teammates. I thought about stuff like that, so y’all need to ask the other side or whoever.”

There is also the matter of Ramsey’s contract situation. Ramsey is in the fourth year of a rookie contract that is paying him $3.6 million in base salary with a $7.4 million salary cap hit. His fifth-year option would cost the Rams $13.7 million in base salary, per OverTheCap.com. If they want to make Ramsey happy, Ramsey will never see that fifth-year option.

Ramsey’s second contract will undoubtedly make him one of the NFL’s highest-paid cornerbacks, putting him in the same neighborhood as Miami’s Xavien Howard (five years, $75.25 million), Washington’s Josh Norman (five years, $75 million), Trumaine Johnson of the Jets (five years, $72.5 million), Minnesota’s Xavier Rhodes (five years, $70.1 million) and Arizona’s Patrick Peterson (five years, $70.05 million). Given Ramsey’s age (he’ll turn 25 on Oct. 24), his athletic potential, and the promise of inflated salary streams with a new collective bargaining agreement, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility the Rams to have to push Ramsey over the $80 million mark on a five-year deal. That’s a major nut for a team that just invested $110 million in their franchise quarterback, and have cap hits of $36,042,682 in 2020 and $32.5 million in 2021 for Goff.

These moves also come with real-life risks. Ramsey’s personality is one.

Ramsey has done a lot to establish himself as one of the NFL’s best cornerbacks. He’s also (in chronological order) called Steve Smith an “old man”; gotten himself kicked out of a game for an altercation with Raiders receiver Johnny Horton; cried on the sideline during a nine-game skid because he was tired of losing; called for a clean sweep of the defensive coaching staff more than once; gotten himself kicked out of a game for an altercation with Bengals receiver A.J. Green; directly criticized defensive coordinator Todd Wash for his lack of adjustments to New England’s offense in the second half of the 2017 AFC championship game; and gotten himself suspended for a week alongside former Jacksonville defensive end Dante Fowler Jr. after a bizarre rant directed at the media.

He was also featured in an August 2018 GQ article in which he called Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen “trash,” Atlanta’s Matt Ryan “overrated” and a product of Kyle Shanahan’s offensive system, and Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger “decent at best.”

Soooo … yeah. The Rams know what they’re in for, and will hope to adjust accordingly. Phillips should keep Peters on an old-school schematic methodology in which pure outside cornerbacks are regarded as such. Moving Ramsey around to multiple positions in a base dime won’t do either side any favors.

There are four plays from Jacksonville’s Week 2 loss to Houston that encapsulate what makes Ramsey great, where his liabilities lie and how he should be used in the near term.

NOTE: follow the link if you want to see the plays & the analysis.
Jalen Ramsey gives the Rams a lockdown cornerback — if he's used correctly

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Ramsey’s metrics follow his assets and liabilities. In 2018, he allowed 53 catches on 97 targets for 749 yards, 246 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, three interceptions and an opponent passer rating of 73.8 as an outside corner, per Pro Football Focus. As a slot cornerback, Ramsey allowed seven catches on nine targets for 96 yards, 30 yards after the catch and an opponent passer rating of 111.1 from the slot.

Through three games in 2019, Ramsey allowed 15 catches on 24 overall targets for 192 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. From the slot, he’d allowed two catches on two targets for 10 yards, and shown the liabilities seen above.

Ramsey is a player with a thoroughbred mentality. As long as the team he’s on understands that and uses his skills accordingly, the relationship should flourish. Under those circumstances, Ramsey is worth what it took to procure and keep his services. Anything else could be a disaster; or at the very least, another instance in which his talents are minimized and his personality is magnified – in all the wrong ways.

Jalen Ramsey is "overjoyed" to have been dealt to the Rams https://t.co/cy6tbgE9nC

— The MMQB (@theMMQB) October 16, 2019

Bucky Brooks
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001066840/article/nfls-mismatch-nightmares-in-2019-jalen-ramsey-trade-fallout?campaign=Twitter_atn

Rams made right call in Ramsey deal.

As a former college scout, I know I’m not supposed to endorse the Los Angeles Rams’ decision to trade two first-round selections (2020, 2021) and a fourth-rounder (2021) for Jalen Ramsey earlier this week, but I absolutely love the team’s decision to opt for “players over picks” in this scenario.

Sure, the prospect of sitting out the opening round in the 2020 and 2021 drafts is a little scary, but, considering the Rams aren’t likely to be drafting early in the round, I don’t know if they could have landed a better player than Ramsey in either class. We are talking about a former No. 5 overall pick with world-class athleticism (ACC long-jump champion), an All-Pro game and the alpha-dog mentality that raises the standard of play of the entire defense when he steps on the field as the designated CB1.

Ramsey, a two-time Pro Bowl selectee, is one of just seven players with nine or more INTs and 45 or more passes defensed since he entered the NFL in 2016. He’s allowed just 53.7 percent of targets to be completed in his career (fifth-lowest among 73 CBs with 150-plus targets since 2016, per Pro Football Focus). And he’s done all this while challenging some of the top receivers in the game.

That’s exactly what you want from a first-round pick when selecting at the top of the board. You want a transcendent talent who can make everyone around him better. That’s what Ramsey has done throughout his time with the Jaguars, and I can’t imagine him failing to perform on the Hollywood stage.

“Ramsey is better than anyone that [the Rams] could’ve drafted in the 2020 and 2021 drafts,” an NFC college scouting director told me. “He’s a proven commodity because we’ve seen him play at an elite level in the league. I don’t know if he fixes their immediate problems, but he gives them another blue-chip player on the roster. … You can never have enough of those on your team.”

Now, as many folks have pointed out, Ramsey’s contract is due to expire after next season, and allowing him to walk would make this trade a loser for the Rams. That’s why I expect the franchise to do whatever it takes to lock him up long-term. So, yes, I’m OK with the Rams borrowing a page from the Los Angeles Lakers and building a “Showtime” squad with highly paid star power all over the field. The 16-time basketball world champions have routinely built their title squads by stockpiling the roster with players who began their careers elsewhere. From Wilt Chamberlain to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Shaquille O’Neal to LeBron James, the Lakers have gone outside the organization to bring in A-list players. Although some of their key contributors have been homegrown products (see: Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant), the Lakers have been the premier team in the NBA due to their willingness to do whatever it takes to put the best five players on the floor.

That said, team-building is a different endeavor in the NFL, and the Rams’ decision to go all in on acquiring blue-chip talents could leave them in a scenario where they don’t make a single first-round pick for five years. They haven’t used a first-round pick since 2016 (Jared Goff), and at the moment, they won’t have another one in their possession until 2022, which puts more pressure on the scouting department to find hidden gems in later rounds. However, given their success rate in recent years with finding talent in the second round or later (Gerald Everett, Cooper Kupp, John Johnson, Tyler Higbee, Samson Ebukam, Taylor Rapp and David Long), I believe the Rams should be able to win games by filling out their roster with low-cost pieces to complement a high-priced set of core players (Goff, Aaron Donald, Brandin Cooks, Todd Gurley and eventually Ramsey).

Remember, the title contenders in the NFL typically have 10 to 12 blue-chip players on their roster. The Rams certainly have the firepower to contend, with the aforementioned quintet ranking among the best at their respective positions and players like Dante Fowler, Michael Brockers, Eric Weddle, Clay Matthews, Robert Woods and Kupp capable of playing like elite players in the team’s system. Although Goff and the offensive line need to play better for the team to make a run at the Lombardi Trophy this season, the pieces are in place for the Rams to enjoy a long stay at the top of the NFC due to an approach that prioritizes proven players over picks in the player-acquisition game.