VB interviews Pastoors (long & pretty "must read"-ish)

Q&A: Rams cap guru Tony Pastoors on offseason deals, the Jared Goff ‘high-class problem’ and ‘more work to do’

Vincent Bonsignore

https://theathletic.com/594953/2018/10/19/qa-rams-cap-guru-tony-pastoors-on-offseason-deals-the-jared-goff-high-class-problem-and-more-work-to-do/

There​ is a classic​ scene in the movie “Swingers”​ where​ Vince Vaughn’s character introduces Jon​ Favreau’s character​ as​ “The guy​ behind the​​ guy behind the guy.”
Ironically, that line aptly describes most NFL front offices these days. The Rams included.
Out front, we always see general manager Les Snead or head coach Sean McVay or COO and executive vice president of football operations Kevin Demoff. And while the trio is largely responsible for the Rams’ undefeated start through the first six weeks of the season, there exists a guy behind the guy behind the guy, someone who largely operates behind the scenes without much fanfare or recognition.
But he’s just as important to the whole operation as Snead, McVay and Demoff.
Tony Pastoors — a quiet, measured 31-year-old former Dartmouth football standout — holds the title of vice president of football and business administration. And with a professional inscription as impressive as that, you can only imagine how wide and deep his responsibilities run.
But for the purpose of brevity, all you really need to know about Patoors is that he’s the Rams salary cap guru and their chief contract negotiator.
And while Snead and his staff are in charge of identifying and acquiring all the players and McVay and his staff are entrusted with coaching them up and Demoff and owner Stan Kroenke decide what the budget looks like each year, it is Pastoors who somehow makes it all work within the NFL’s incredibly complex and excruciatingly difficult salary cap.
So if you’re a Rams fan looking to thank anyone for the incredible offseason the franchise achieved in which it rewarded Aaron Donald (six-year $135 million extension), Todd Gurley (four years, $57.5 million), Rob Havenstein (four years, $32.5 million), added Ndamukong Suh for $14 million, acquired Brandin Cooks and gave him a five-year $34 million extension and traded for Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib, then Pastoors is your guy. He made it all work under the cap.
And keep in mind Pastoors also preserved financial flexibility moving forward to take care of Jared Goff, who is creeping into that rarified air occupied by franchise quarterbacks and will need to get paid like one sooner rather than later.
With an eye on the present and the future, Patoors helped lock in the Rams’ incredible young core. He also left plenty of room to supplement it in such a way that, provided they keep making sound personnel decisions, it will leave the Rams as playoff contenders over an extended window.
“His job is to make sure that, ‘Hey, not only can we have Christmas but we can have birthdays and next year’s Christmas and next year’s birthdays and so on and so forth,’ ” Snead said.
Demoff, a fellow Dartmouth alum, brought Pastoors to the Rams in 2010 after he graduated. Pastoors’ role continued to grow and evolve until Demoff finally handed over contract negotiating responsibilities to him in 2015.
“I always knew I wanted to work in sports,” Pastoors said. “I’m a passionate sports fan and always loved the team aspect and being around a team. And wanting to help build a team.
“I don’t know that I ever dreamt about negotiating contracts. I think that’s just one of those things, it’s just how the world worked out. I had an unbelievable mentor in Kevin to learn from and over the years, kind of helped to take things off his plate more and more and more until one day he kind of looked at me and said, ‘Hey go for it.’ ”
Along the way, Pastoors has cultivated a much-needed calming presence in the often volatile and emotional world of pro football in which the desire to win now must be balanced with the bigger picture. What might look great today could cause major ramifications tomorrow.
“He’s a great compass,” Snead said. “Because he’s the one who will constantly remind us of our philosophy that was designed and put together during the calm moments and not during the storm when we’re irrational or emotional.”
“When all four of us are together he’s going to listen like 95 percent of the time,” Snead added. “But then when he does say something, it’s absolutely worth listening to.”

Pastoors sat down with The Athletic to talk about his role, the Rams’ offseason and how things look moving forward.

In your role as the salary cap manager and contract negotiator, do you ever have to play the role of the parent having to tell the kids they might not be able to get that one big present they were hoping for?

I hope that’s never happened (laughing). No, honestly I think that’s probably a lot of Kevin’s role. At the end of the day, that’s big picture. And while I certainly do that, part of what I always strive to do is to make sure you never have to say no. And be in a position where you always have the flexibility to do those kinds of things. Now, I don’t want to say I’ve never said no. But certainly, and I think Les and Sean have an unbelievable understanding of all this, there are tradeoffs to everything we do. So yes, we may be able to do this, but we’re not going to be able to do this, this or this. Fortunately, to this point, we haven’t had to say no too much, but I think a lot of that is because of their understanding.

It would seem in your world with managing a salary cap that you’re constantly thinking one year, two years, five years down the road. Is that accurate?

That’s probably more of how I operate than say Sean and Les. Especially during the season, right? Coach lives in a week-to-week, so Sean is only thinking right now. And certainly Les goes right along with that. What do we need this week? Especially in season, they’re pretty focused on the now. Every once in a while you’ll be able to get Les out and have a bigger picture conversation. But if you want to talk about the future or planning right now with Sean, it’s probably not an ideal time. So yeah, it’s pretty much how I function. I have to look ahead.

I’m constantly trying to plan years out in advance and forecasting where we’re going to be. And obviously it looks nice right now, but realistically how much is it going to be that way? In a perfect world, it’s ‘Hey, this is what we’ll look like in ‘19, this is what we’ll look like in ‘20.’ But obviously, there’s hundreds of variables in between that will change all that. So at times you kind of feel like you plan ahead only to throw it all away anyway.
But, no, right now I’m not looking much at all at 2018. We’re done and gone there. We’re looking ahead to 2019, 2020 and 2021 and trying to figure it out and make sure we’re continually set up for success.

You were front and center in an incredibly successful — and I’m sure stressful — offseason. Let’s start with the Aaron Donald situation, which for obvious reasons dominated the news. It took more than a year to get that done. As the person in the thick of those negotiations, can you shed any light on what the primary sticking point was?

There’s so many — especially deals of that magnitude — there’s just so many little nuances that go into it. Obviously, the dollar amount is what everyone will fixate on or the guarantee amount. But the structure and how the mechanisms in that contract work and when the guarantees fully vest and what does that mean from a financial standpoint for the club and things like that, all of those things get played into it. And since it had been a while since a top-notch defender was done like that, I think it further complicated things.
And so, trying to put Aaron in a position where he felt appreciated and he felt the contract was commensurate with his play and do it in a structure that we were able to actually deal with and handle today, tomorrow and two or three years from now — right? — you can’t just do a deal and say, “Hey, you’re the highest paid defensive player, great, let’s just move on.” I mean, that deal is going to, we’re going to feel that for years to come. And if he keeps playing the way he plays I don’t think we’ll have any issues with it, right?
But just making sure we’re set up for success because this is one of those games where it’s not just about that one guy. There’s always going to be 53 guys and so how do you manage all of that and, like I said, if things continue to progress and go the right way, hopefully, we’re looking at another big contract for a quarterback here soon. And so how does all that fit in? And how do we spread these things out and manage them over the years?

Staying on 2018, it was a pretty active offseason with the trades for Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib and Brandin Cooks and adding Ndamukong Suh and extending Aaron Donald, Todd Gurley and Rob Havenstein and Cooks. It really could not have played out much better. What do you attribute the smoothness to?

I think it starts and ends with (Rams owner) Stan Kroenke. Players have taken note, right? And so, we had a pretty successful year a year ago and have an unbelievable young head coach who the players really, really respect and love and that gets around pretty quick. I think all of those things made the offseason much easier than it probably could have been.
Not to say it was easy by any stretch. It’s never easy getting some of those things done. But between Kevin and Les and Sean and the support we have around here, we were able to get things done. And we were fortunate we worked with some really good agents on the other end who were willing to work with us and, at times, were willing to be creative.
We’re not always the most simple “this is how we do things” (franchise). We have no problems looking at things differently and creatively. And so we were pretty fortunate in that sense.

From the outside looking in, the perception is you guys were much more aggressive this offseason in adding players. Fair? And if so, what was the motivation?

I don’t know that we were more aggressive this offseason than we’ve ever been. I think it was just, probably, it just came across as a little different. And people probably pay a little more attention because you are 11-5 and you are in Los Angeles and you have Sean as your head coach and Les. And things are going the right way and people kind of sensed and felt that.
But with every move, there’s a tradeoff and so we’ve been fortunate in that we’ve had a lot of good players. And some of them left in free agency and so, OK, how do we supplement some of that? And we trade away players too, right? We acquired an Aqib Talib and a Marcus Peters, but we also traded away a former defensive captain and former first-team All-Pro.
So things went in and things went out. That’s where the notion that we were ultra-aggressive, it probably just manifested itself in a different way than it had before. But I think every offseason you go into wanting to try and better your team.
That said, even with all the moves you made, this wasn’t a one-and-done situation. The long range has been protected.
The notion that we pushed all the chips in and went all in (this year), I mean, I understand where it comes from. It’s just not how we’re set up at all.

You mentioned the possibility of a big contract soon for your quarterback, Jared Goff. For whatever reason, there is a certain line of thinking that it’s so hard to build a Super Bowl contending team while paying a quarterback big money. It’s almost like some people think it’s impossible to do so. Where do you fall in that regard, especially as someone who manages the salary cap and negotiates contracts and who has a young, high-level quarterback who will eventually be paid as one?

I’m actually going through Super Bowl teams in my head and, aside from Russell Wilson on a rookie deal and, obviously, Philadelphia was different last year because of the quarterback injury. But aside from those two examples, I’m pretty sure they were all veteran quarterbacks or guys that were not on rookie contracts.
Matt Ryan was on a $20-plus-million contract when he played in a Super Bowl. Cam Newton, when he played in a Super Bowl, was on his second contract. Obviously, Peyton Manning was well-paid in his Super Bowl appearances. Ben Roethlisberger, aside from maybe his first one, was on a big contract. Eli Manning was on a second contract. Aaron Rodgers was on a second contract. Drew Brees was not on a rookie deal when he won a Super Bowl. And obviously, Tom Brady has been on a few contracts.
And so the notion of, your (only or best) shot is when your quarterback is on a rookie deal has been disproven regularly. And certainly you have the ability to do some things, and you try to stagger some of these things in how and when people are paid in preparation for assuming a quarterback contract.
That position is just different. That’s the one position in this game you can’t truly scheme away from. If the best pass rusher is on one end, well, you can run away from him. The best receiver, you can double cover him. The quarterback is getting the ball on every play, and there’s nothing you can really do to stop that. And certainly, there are defensive coordinators over the years that have shown ways to slow it down or maybe affect it. But you can’t stop — whether it’s Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers or whoever from getting the snap from center and doing what they do. And so that position is different. It’s paid what it is for a reason. And I don’t think it’s a hindrance to pay a quarterback.
If you’re paying a quarterback, it means you’ve got a quarterback. And if you’ve got a quarterback, you’ve got a chance. Otherwise, you’re looking for one. And we did that for a number of years. Some unfortunate injuries and (other factors), and so you were looking.
Obviously, Jared has demonstrated over the last year plus he is truly in command of this offense and what he’s done so far (this year) speaks volumes to who he is as a player and the work he’s put in and the relationship he has with Sean and the work they’re doing together. Really, that offense as a whole. But it’s a great problem to have. A high-class problem. Worrying about paying a quarterback? Great. That means we’ve got one. We can figure out the rest.

Does having an owner with the resources of a Stan Kroenke help when it comes to managing the salary cap? The way you can structure contracts and pay them out?

Not really because there’s such parity in the NFL and you have the hard salary cap. In the NBA, you have a luxury tax in which the big-market teams can go above and beyond because of their local TV deals. Baseball you can do the same. But with it being a truly hard cap, it makes it a pretty even playing field across the board and between all the owners and the teams. With the CBA and the minimum spend thresholds over four-year periods and everything like that, we’re all pretty much living in the same world. And so, I don’t know that it gives us any sort of advantage.
I think the advantage we have from our owner — and I truly believe we have an unbelievable advantage having someone like Mr. Kroenke. I mean it’s right there on the wall (pointing to a wall-sized rendering of the new $4.5 billion stadium the Rams are building in Inglewood). What he’s doing here in Los Angeles — players and coaches and media and people are taking note. What he’s doing here is special and unique and it’s probably once in a lifetime. And to be able to be a part of it is pretty cool. I think our players see that every day and we’re fortunate to have a guy like Sean, but to me, it all starts and ends with Stan.

You seem like a very laidback guy. But as someone who negotiates contracts, that can be a pretty volatile, emotional world. How would you describe your demeanor as a negotiator?

I try to be laidback. I’m not sure you’ve ever seen Kevin or Les on game day but … someone needs to be laidback. Or at least calm.
No, I think that’s, I think by nature I’m a little more tranquil, but I certainly can get excited at times. I think anyone can. But that’s something I’ve learned over the years and something I learned from Kevin. And certainly something you learn from Stan. I mean, he’s as even-keeled as they come. Obviously, those two have been pretty successful in what they’ve done, so you try to imitate some of that. And obviously, you see Sean on the sidelines in the way he handles himself.
I don’t know that getting into an argument is going to help either side. It doesn’t mean I always agree, but there are certain ways to communicate that in a respectful manner and not get everybody all up in arms.

Sean McVay has talked about still evolving as a play caller. Do you feel the same way managing a salary cap and negotiating contracts?

If you’re not learning and evolving, you’re probably in trouble. I think it’s with everything we do. You want to look at it and go back and, “OK, what did we do well? What did we do not so well?” And for me, it’s always keeping an eye on what’s going on around the league. It’s not just our deals we look at, it might be others.
And I’m just a fan of sports and building and managing teams. No different than Sean being a fan of great coaches. I’m a big sports fan. So whether it’s the NBA or the NHL, MLB, NFL or even some of the soccer stuff now. You follow that stuff. You keep tabs on it. A big contract comes in, and how do these things get done? And so it’s always been interesting to me how things get done, how they’re put together and how do people build teams. Whether it’s this sport or another sport.
What the Warriors have done is really, really impressive. Being able to put that team together with, and while everyone talks about “Oh, they went and bought Kevin Durant in free agency,” but that team was essentially put together through the draft. And you kind of forget about that. Look, a few years prior to that, Oklahoma City with James Harden and Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant you kind of look back and go, “Whoa.”
And so, how do those teams get put together? How do you keep those teams together? And that’s the hardest part. And we have one here in the NFL that somehow does it year in and year out in New England. How do they continually have such success? So certainly you keep tabs on all that stuff and try to learn from them. And even in the business world. I mean, I look at that (the rendering of the new Inglewood stadium) every day, right? And how that came to be and everything that went into it.
That will make an unbelievable book someday. But just being able to see how that all came about, there’s so many different ways to learn.

Obviously, the CBA is incredibly complicated. Are there elements in there that would take you by surprise?

There’s always going to be something. But you always want to continue to learn. And I would never say, “Oh, I’ve mastered the salary cap” and this is easy or anything like that. Because there’s a lot that goes into it and a lot of preparation for everything we do and a lot of planning and forward thinking.
And I think the other part of it is, while the salary cap — and people kind of get fascinated by it and talk about how teams manage it — but at the end of the day there’s real money behind it. And it’s not my money. So I will always be, probably, overly careful and overly cautious or at least try to be. Because you take very seriously the responsibility of taking care of, or spending, someone else’s money. And like I said, it begins and ends with Stan, and for him to give us these resources and allow us to compensate our players well, it’s a responsibility you don’t take lightly.

With the NFL salary cap as hard as it is, does it get frustrating at times knowing you simply have to come to grips with making difficult decisions?

It certainly can be frustrating, but I think what you always want to do is set yourself up and set the organization up to be flexible to adapt. And you never want to disappoint anyone. Whether it’s the coaches or the players. But inevitably someone’s maybe not going to feel valued the way they think they should.
But we’re pretty fortunate, and at the end of the day you can always manipulate salary caps. And Kevin will tell you, it’s like a credit card, right? You can pay it all now or you can pay it over time and feel the pain little by little. And for the most part, we’ve always tried to take as much pain in the here and now. Now, obviously, when you do a deal like Aaron Donald or Todd Gurley you can’t exactly do that. And so, there’s some elements of where we deviated a little bit from how we’ve done things in the past.
But at times you have to be willing to do that for exceptional players like that. And when you have the Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, you’re probably going to have to do that. And we’re unbelievably fortunate because of everything Mr. Kroenke allows us to do and the resources he gives and the support he provides everyone in this building. It really makes a lot of it manageable.

Trades can happen in a variety of ways — quick process, prolonged — and as the salary cap guy you probably have to have answers quickly in order to give Les a sense of what can be accomplished or not. In the case of, say, the Marcus Peters trade, how did that play out?

That one actually came about pretty quick. But I think it was no secret to anyone that one of the places we looked at this offseason to improve was at cornerback. And we had a guy (Trumaine Johnson) who was on two franchise tags and we’re making a decision about financially how does it work potentially putting a third tag and what does his free agency number look like and all those different things.
You lean on the scouts as far as what does the draft look like? Where we’re picking, what are the chances we can get a guy who can come in and play right away? And we fill those things in. OK, if he’s not a right-away day-one starter and he’s a year or two away, what do we do this year? How do you fill that spot? So you’re looking at all these different scenarios and all these different ways to address it.
And so when Kansas City reached out, it was a pretty quick conversation. Les came over and said, “OK, what’s the contract look like?” And it’s a rookie deal. So you knew financially that it fits. Especially at that time of the year. And from there, Les and Sean sit down and go through the player and watch tape together and that kind of stuff. And all the while you’re trying to figure out what’s the ask. What do they really want? And what are we willing to give up in exchange for a player like this? And obviously a player like Marcus’ caliber, they don’t come cheap.
And then just finding a way to get that deal done — obviously not having a 2018 second-rounder, you had to look ahead to 2019. You put that deal together and you’re able to when Les and Sean and everyone kind of signs off and Les and we’re constantly bouncing off, “OK, what exactly does the compensation look like?” And when Les finally gets us to a place where we’re all like, “OK.” At that point, you just wait for the trade papers.

But making a trade like you did for Marcus Peters, there are financial considerations looming in terms of his next contract. How much is that talked about?

Yes, you have to look at everything. You can’t just say, “Hey we’re going to make this trade and it’s all going to work out and life is good.” You have to look at: What does this mean a year from now? Two years from now? What’s the fifth-year option number? What does the franchise tag potentially looks like? How does that fit if that’s the road you have to go down? Are you able to actually do that?
And then for us, once that deal was done, OK, how do you address the other (cornerback) side? And credit to Les and credit to our scouts, they were able to scour college, pro, everything. And there aren’t enough guys on the planet that can go outside and play corner. There just aren’t.
So to be able to acquire two good ones (Aqib Talib being the other) in one offseason is a credit to those guys. And trying to figure out how to actually make it work, I’m just trying to hold up my side of it.

And almost simultaneously, here comes a trade for Brandin Cooks for a first-round pick knowing he was set to become a free agent at the end of the year. Can you shed light, from your end of things, how that that all played out?

There was some interest last year. Obviously, he was traded to New England, so it’s a guy you kept tabs on.
When we went into free agency, we were unsure where we were going to end up with (Sammy Watkins), and when that got to a point where it’s just not looking good, it’s going to end up here, you kind of go back to work and say, “OK, what are our other options? What does the draft look like? Who are the other free-agent options? Who can you potentially trade for?”
And so you kind of talk through that list and then Les kind of reaches out to New England and obviously the whole story of Sean and Bill Belichick at a clinic together. Then it’s how does it all work? And the thing that made that one a little tougher is we were courting Ndamukong Suh at the time.
So, trying to balance, “Hey, where can we go on Ndamukong?” And … “if this is where Ndamukong’s number grows to or this is where that market heads, you can’t fit this in too.” And so if this is going to come, then Ndamukong has to be between this and this. And how does it all balance itself out?
And during the offseason when Sean’s not in game-plan mode — he’s in the office and he’s grinding on tape and doing all that kind of stuff — we’re constantly talking as a group. And Kevin will be here as well. And so what does it look like moving forward.
And so then, when you formulate all that stuff you kind of run it up the flagpole and get Stan’s perspective on it as well. Which is always invaluable. Especially this offseason, the support. Obviously, he was a major part of last season. He’s been a major part of every offseason but obviously this year incredibly so.

It just seems like there was an urgency. Not to say there wasn’t one when you were making the climb up, but winning the division and the goal line being within arm’s reach, it just seems like there was an urgency during the offseason to close that gap.

Last year just felt different for everybody. And wanting to build on that and from the day the season ended, 11-5 was fun, it was great, but it’s not good enough. And so how do we take those next steps and Mr. Kroenke is a major part of that process with us.
And so, as we went through everything this offseason for him to be supportive and part of it and, really, in a lot of regards the driving force behind all of this, that’s where we have such an advantage with him. We wouldn’t get Suh if Stan is not a part of this. And that’s where it’s so awesome to have an owner like that.

It almost seems like, at the beginning of Suh’s free agency you guys couldn’t be serious contenders considering everything else that was going on. But you stayed patient and it just seemed like his market eventually fell into your world.

Yeah, sometimes I think being patient is just fine. It’s not always hurry up so you get something done. And so you make decisions. And again, a lot of that comes from the guidance of guys like Kevin and Stan.
So while, yeah, it would have been great if we were able to get it all done a year earlier or six months earlier or whatever it may have been, the process had to play out.
It’s no different than players, right? Sometimes you’d love to, say, “I wish we would have done Aaron’s deal a year earlier.” It would have probably caused me a lot less stress and him a lot less stress and Les and Sean and our fanbase a ton less stress. But sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. And being patient is never a bad thing. And sometimes things fall to you, sometimes things don’t. But I think people, players especially, they see and they know what’s going on here. And so sometimes we can afford to be patient and things work themselves out.
You don’t get any of these deals done, whether it’s trades or extensions or anything like that, without a buy-in from players. We can offer a lot of these guys whatever it is, but if this isn’t where you want to be or this doesn’t feel right, it’s probably not going to work out for anybody. And that’s something we’ve been extremely fortunate with.

Do you give yourself a chance to celebrate or is it always onto the next one?

This offseason, it definitely felt like, “OK, we’re on to the next one.” But it’s exciting, obviously. And I don’t want to take away from that. To be able to extend a guy like Todd Gurley and keep him in a Rams uniform for a long time is really exciting for our fans and our coaches. For the city of Los Angeles. And so, I don’t want to take that away and I never would.
But I don’t know if it was last season, and kind of the mentality of this offseason, but we feel like we’ve got more work to do. There’s unfinished business. And so it was — it’s great to get those things done because I hope it sets us up for years to come. But at the same time, while an NFC West championship last year was a great first step, it’s not the ultimate goal.