ESPN says Allen Robinson has been Rams’ biggest mistake of last five years
With the Los Angeles Rams entering an active rebuild period over the last few season, it was important for general manager Les Snead to lead that into the next era. He’s done well over the past two years in the draft, but the offseason following the Super Bowl season may have been one of Snead’s worst.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell recently ranked all 32 teams worst move over the past five seasons. Coming in at number 13 was the Rams signing of wide receiver Allen Robinson. Said Barnwell,
“General manager Les Snead has gotten a lot of things right over the past five seasons, but two free agent signings have gone spectacularly wrong. One was signing Jonah Jackson this offseason. There’s a chance his Rams career might be over after being paid $25 million for three games. Until that happens, the Robinson deal has to be an even messier acquisition…The hope for L.A. was that an upgrade at quarterback and a more competitive situation would unlock him. Instead, Robinson somehow got worse. He averaged just under 1.0 yard per route run, which ranked 96th out of the 104 receivers who ran at least 200 routes that season. Even worse, the Rams were on the hook for a significant salary in 2023. To get out of the contract, they ate $10.8 million of his 2023 salary as part of a deal with the Steelers that netted L.A. a swap of seventh-round picks. The Rams ended up paying nearly $26 million for those 33 receptions. Can’t win them all.”
A serious case can be made that this will be Jonah Jackson following this season given the disaster that signing has been. However, for now, that honor belongs to Robinson. Again, Snead has done well in the draft over the last two years. The Rams general manager has found diamonds in Puka Nacua and a potential star in edge rusher Jared Verse among others.
With that said, Snead has had some serious gaffes in fre agency as of late. The team missed bad on Allen Robinson in 2022 and then again on Jonah Jackson. It’s also not looking good for Colby Parkinson given how much the team paid for him. It’s one thing to miss in the draft, but free agent misses can have larger implications given the financial aspect of it. Thankfully, Jackson won’t have any guaranteed money after this year, making his contract more moveable than Robinson’s.
If the Rams are to take that next step in 2025, they will need to add some key veterans to the mix. That can be done via trade, but it’s more like that it is done in free agency. Snead will need to learn from his past misses and turn a corner this summer.
