zn wrote:

Biggest concern: After Aaron Donald’s retirement, the Rams will be heavily dependent on their young defense, led by new coordinator Chris Shula. Los Angeles has used draft capital to build up the unit the past two years, but the Rams will need to see continued growth from second-year players DE Kobie Turner and LB Byron Young. The unit won’t have the benefit of having Donald, who was double-teamed on a league-high 311 pass-rush plays last season, to take off pressure. — Barshop

1. verse

2. young

3. turner

4. white

5. williams

6. curl

7. fiske

either first or second year players or a big unknown or a new signing. i’m not sure i’ve ever seen such a huge turnover on a defense in this short a time.

The Rams are hiring Scott Frost, per team and league sources. He will help with a variety of roles on the staff (including special teams where they have a vacancy). He spent some time with the Rams in OTAs and training camp. This has been in the works for a few days.

— Jourdan Rodrigue (@JourdanRodrigue) September 1, 2024

by the end of the season the rams could have 4 rookies starting on defense. and another two in their sophomore seasons.

hopefully, that means good things for the defense.

from what rodrigue is saying it seems like more about confidence in his ability to play lg than anything to do with a lack of confidence in his ability to play c.

zn wrote:

So the answer is obvious if people got out their emotions.

well then my guess is jones’ health isn’t right. his knee is worse than we know. the titans know this as was possibly disclosed by the rams thus the extremely low compensation. but then why would the titans want jones? possibly a better scheme fit?

deion sanders.

jim brown. supposedly the greatest lacrosse player ever i think i heard.

jim thorpe? don’t know much about his career though.

zn wrote:

Could it be that that rubbed McV the wrong way?

if this is true, then i would tend to criticize him for making this decision.  i’m not saying this is true.  but if it’s true.  i don’t agree with it.

i’m still left to wonder if they let jones go at the end of the year what the comp pick would be.  and it’s a 2026 fifth rounder that they received in the trade…

they do have 11 dbs.  is that unusual?  does this mark a shift in philosophy?  how many dbs did they carry last year?

also doesn’t sound like speights is the starter. at least not immediately.

zn wrote:

Sean McVay on Ernest Jones trade: “Football decision. What we felt was best for the football team. Amazing guy. He was great for us for a few years. But we felt that this was best for our football team.”

i’m watching the interview right. he got a little testy when a reporter tried to follow up on “best for our football team” quote. which i understand. i don’t think i would feel comfortable elaborating on that statement regardless of what the real reasons were. we’ll likely never know the full reasons behind why the rams did what they did.

Zooey wrote:

Would they have got a 6th rounder for him anyway? Or something?

yeah. that’s what i want to know. cuz that would piss me off even more.

even if speights is better than jones. then start both or keep one for depth. i want to understand why.

if jones played out the year and left as a free agent, how much would the compensatory pick be?

rams now at the new woodland hills facility.

The Woodland Hills era begins pic.twitter.com/f1T2JIZpNX

— Stu Jackson (@StuJRams) August 26, 2024

zn wrote:

Me (at moi.com): I thought Scott looked good. I liked him better than Evans. Once again, the Rams don’t listen to me. And I ask you–what good has it ever done them to ignore my takes on things? Hmm?

rivers still here though so then one more cut?

zn wrote:

BTW Jones deleted the post saying he didn’t ask to be traded.

i saw that it was deleted. redditverse is speculating the agent demanded a trade without jones’ knowledge. i would hate to see him go. i know his position isn’t as valuable but i like him. i think he contributes in a lot of different ways. i’m no expert so i leave it to the rams to figure out what’s best.

zn wrote:

Ah but, then, also, there’s Bennett….

ya know. mcvay largely inherited a team with talent and just needed to push it over the edge to win that superbowl. now with donald retiring he is largely working with a new set of players. a whole new set of coaches. we’ll see how far he can take them. still too early to tell but promising.

but. the one thing he hasn’t done yet is select and develop his own qb. assuming he and snead can continue to draft successfully, the biggest challenge, if they’re still here, will be to make the transition from stafford to the next qb. of course. that will take an extreme amount of luck as well. but that and another superbowl are probably the biggest things left on mcvay’s resume (snead too).

and again. it’s far from proven that these past two drafts have been a success. but. if he gets that second superbowl, it’ll be most likely due to having successful drafts.

so a second superbowl. and drafting and developing a qb (or maybe even acquiring a young qb and developing him) are the next defining moments in mcvay’s career. i hate to reduce it down to those two things as a way of determining his success. because obviously there’s a lot of other things that go into that, and he won’t necessarily be a failure if he can’t achieve those things. but they’re definitely markers. or benchmarks maybe?