Where do NFL executives rank the Rams front office?
Over the past few years, the Los Angeles Rams front office and general manager Les Snead has gotten their fair share of both praise and criticism. Snead was praised for having the authority to make trades that resulted in a Super Bowl and rightfully got some criticism for poor drafting that resulted in the downfall in 2022. The Rams general manager now has another challenge of building a contender without Aaron Donald.
The Athletic recently polled 40 league insiders, including 35 high-ranking executives and five coaches. They then put together the 10 best front offices in the NFL. Coming in at number eight was the Rams. Said The Athletic,
“Snead famously ushered in a “F— them picks” era of roster-building, flipping first-round choices for veteran stars at a time when conventional wisdom held that draft capital was king…The aggressive strategy seemed to catch up to the Rams in 2022, when injuries ravaged a veteran roster that also lacked depth. But McVay led them back to the postseason in 2023.”
Too many front offices not only lack the awareness, but also the conviction to make a big move that may pay off in a championship. The NFL can be random, meaning it’s critical to capitalize on a window when it is open. Team often just wait until next year or hold out to see whether or not talent develops. The Rams understood that Marcus Peters wasn’t a fit in their defense and in turn traded for cornerback Jalen Ramsey instead. It couldn’t have been easy to recognize that Jared Goff wasn’t ready to win with the roster around him. Therefore, the Rams traded for quarterback Matthew Stafford. Needing a pass rusher late in the season, Snead traded for edge rusher Von Miller. All of those moves were imperative to the Rams hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
A head coach added, “I think it’s pretty cool how they sold out to win a Super Bowl and then they refurbished pretty quickly.”
When the Rams sold the farm for a Super Bowl, everybody was waiting for the inevitable downfall. While they went 5-12 in 2022, much of that was due to injury. The team lacked young stars and some depth due to the lack of top draft picks. However, no team would have been able to recover from the number of injuries that the Rams face.
Last season, after many wrote the Rams off and saw them as a team that was tanking, they made it back to the postseason. This past April, the Rams selected in the first round for the first time since 2016 and took edge rusher Jared Verse.
Out of the 40 voters, the Rams received just one first place vote. Coming in ahead of them were the Seattle Seahawks at seven and Green Bay Packers at six. The Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, Kansas City Chiefs, and Baltimore Ravens rounded out the top-5.
A serious argument could be made that the Rams should be ahead of the Seahawks, Packers, Lions, and 49ers. The Lions feel like a team that benefitted from recency bias while the Seahawks benefitted from past success. Seattle has just one playoff win since McVay joined the Rams in 2017.
Despite making moves that resulted in a championship and drafting two players last year that were in the running for Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year, Snead has yet to win an executive of the year award. Still, he is very much a big reason for the Rams success.
