What The Fuck Are The Rams Doing?

The Rams just traded for Cleveland Browns superstar pass rusher Myles Garrett. But before you ooh and ahh at the prospect of the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year joining Sean McVay’s superteam-in-waiting, you should probably consider what Los Angeles gave up to acquire him. Cue a wince: According to multiple reports, the Rams are giving up Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-round pick, and a 2029 third-round pick. This is a move that harkens back to the 2021 offseason, when Los Angeles GM Les Snead—with the blessing of head coach McVay—traded QB Jared Goff plus two first-round picks to the Detroit Lions in exchange for QB Matthew Stafford. That trade, as you now know, resulted in the Rams winning a Super Bowl, with Snead basking in his win-now approach to team building by wearing a “Fuck Them Picks” T-shirt after the fact. This time around, with Stafford locked in for two more years, Snead decided to fuck them picks again, and to fuck Jared Verse for good measure. Snead and McVay hit the jackpot going against the grain five years ago, but the circumstances are different this time around. For one, when they traded for Stafford, they acquired a future Hall of Famer at the most important position in the sport. History also tells us that, in aggregate, giving away all of your draft picks is still really fucking stupid. Now, over the past few years, Snead was able to make up for the loss of those picks by grabbing the likes of Byron Young, Kobie Turner, Braden Fiske, Puka Nacua, and Verse with his remaining picks. Verse was the 2024 Defensive Rookie of the Year, Young rates as an even better pass rusher than Verse, and Nacua—despite being a world-class moron—is arguably the best wideout in football. Those draft picks by Snead are the reason that L.A. has remained in serious contention as Stafford has neared the end of his career.