It wasn’t exactly a successful offseason for the Rams – certainly not one filled with marquee additions to the roster. Rather, it was more about subtractions. The team cut ties with Todd Gurley, Brandin Cooks, Clay Matthews, Nickell Robey-Coleman and lost Dante Fowler Jr. and Cory Littleton in free agency, opening the door for plenty of competition in camp.
As a result, the Rams have been slipping in power rankings across the internet this spring and summer with analysts showing little confidence in L.A.’s chances of bouncing back from a disappointing 2019 season.
In Doug Farrar’s latest power rankings for Touchdown Wire, the Rams are once again in the bottom half of the league. More specifically, they’re 24th, which is where they were ranked after the draft in Touchdown Wire’s poll.
Here’s what Farrar wrote about the Rams, which includes some reason for hope, but also concern about the team’s win-now approach.
The Rams team that lost Super Bowl LIII to the Patriots at the end of the 2018 season seems very much in the rear-view mirror. Running back Todd Gurley and receiver Brandin Cooks are off to other teams, leaving catastrophic cap hits in their wake. Jared Goff and Aaron Donald combine for 2020 cap hits of more than $50 million, and while Donald has proven unquestionably that he’s worth whatever you pay him, Goff has not. Add in the lack of high draft picks as an inevitable price of the team’s win-now philosophy a couple years back, and the reckoning begins now. There’s still enough talent on the roster and in the coaching staff to make the Rams league-average if everything breaks right, but if it doesn’t, last season’s 9-7 record may seem like a relatively pleasant memory.
No one in their right mind will complain about the contract Donald got from the Rams a few years ago, but the team has come under some criticism for the deal it gave Goff. He was really good in 2018, but after signing his extension last offseason, he regressed considerably and didn’t exactly look like a top-10 quarterback like he’s paid to be.
But Goff can still prove he’s worth that $134 million deal by bouncing back in 2020 and playing closer to the way he did two years ago than he did last season. That probably won’t happen if the offensive line and running game don’t improve, but Goff has to overcome issues such as those at some point.