With the Rams taking home a Super Bowl championship on Sunday night and the Bengals finishing just minutes short of their first Super Bowl in franchise history, there’s a lot of conversations to be had about how these two teams were constructed. Rams general manager Les Snead went about as all-in as you can be trading draft picks to secure impact players now in the hopes that they would secure a championship, and they did just that.
On the other hand, the Bengals had a “fork in the road” decision by either drafting offensive lineman Penei Sewell and fortifying the offensive line or drafting Ja’Marr Chase. Chase is an elite weapon that already has a rapport with Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow from their time at LSU.
Both decisions were made by their respective teams, and both led each franchise to a Super Bowl berth. But, we have to ask, are these decisions going to become the norm in football going forward? Let’s dive into both situations and then project into the future.
Los Angeles Rams
The aforementioned Snead took to his draft picks like somebody in a dynasty fantasy football startup draft who wants to win right away and traded, well, pretty much everything. The cupboard is pretty bare with their lack of draft picks. The soonest first-round draft pick the Rams haven’t traded will be in 2024.
Jalen Ramsey
- Rams dealt: 2019 first-round pick, 2020 first-round pick, 2021 fourth-round pick
Matthew Stafford
- Rams dealt: 2021 third-round pick, 2022 first-round pick, 2023 first-round pick, quarterback Jared Goff
Von Miller
- Rams dealt: 2022 second-round pick, 2022 third-round pick
Sony Michel
- Rams dealt: 2022 sixth-round pick, 2023 fourth-round pick
It’s hard to argue with the success of these transactions for the Rams. I mean, they won the Super Bowl. Stafford threw 41 touchdown passes, threw for almost 5000 yards, and averaged over 20 fantasy points per game. Stafford has been a significant upgrade over Goff in every way, so maybe Goff shouldn’t have skipped the most important meal of the day with Cooper Kupp?
Cooper Kupp credits “Breakfast Club” for rapport he’s developed quickly with Matthew Stafford pic.twitter.com/B6x9TuQV2d
— PickandPop (@PickAndPopNet) December 14, 2021
Ramsey and Miller have been anchors for the vaunted Los Angeles Rams defense that ranked fifth in Football Outsiders’ DVOA in 2021. Michel was brought into the fold just before the 2021 season started as a bandage for the running back room to provide insurance after the team had presumably lost Cam Akers for the season. Even with Akers’ miraculous return to the lineup, Michel has kept a role with the team and was involved in the three-back rotation en route to a title. It’s hard to argue with the team’s success with their all-in, veteran-laden approach.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals took that “fork in the road” and drafted LSU wide receiver, Ja’Marr Chase, with the fifth-overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, bucking conventional wisdom to build an NFL roster “inside-out.” The Bengals needed both players, but the offensive player won out.
Cincinnati’s offensive line was arguably the most glaring need heading into the 2021 NFL Draft, with a line in 2020 that allowed 32 sacks (second-most in the NFL) and the fifth-most quarterback hits in the 11 games Joe Burrow played. The Bengals also sported a whopping 10 players with 200 snaps amongst their linemen. For continuity’s sake, that’s #notgood. The Bengals heading into the 2022 offseason still need competent offensive linemen, and that’s the priority for the Bengals’ brain trust. Per ESPN’s Seth Walder, the Bengals posted a 14-percent pass-block win rate, the lowest mark by a team in any game this season.
Bengals finished with a 14% pass block win rate, the worst by any team in any game this season.
(ESPN / NFL Next Gen Stats)
— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) February 14, 2022
As for the offensive side of the ball, the Bengals already have two quality wide receivers in Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd, so adding Chase could be seen as a luxury pick. Adding that third wideout presents opposing defenses with numerous problems, not to mention Joe Mixon in the backfield and the 2020 top pick Burrow to oversee it all from behind center.
It’s not like the Bengals haven’t ignored the offensive line – they’ve added four linemen in the past two draft classes, including one that will likely be starting in the Super Bowl (2020 sixth-round pick Hakeem Adeniji) for Cincinnati. As we saw this past Sunday, the Bengals need to add more bodies on the line to protect their sizeable quarterback investment.
Was drafting a wide receiver and leaving potential franchise anchor at left tackle in Sewell on the draft board risky? Absolutely. Burrow headed into 2021 recuperating from a torn ACL that prematurely ended his 2020 season. It takes a ton of confidence in your quarterback and the weaponry to make this decision to draft Chase over Sewell. The best part is now, heading into 2022, the Bengals can focus on drafting offensive linemen with higher draft capital and cap space to fortify their roster now that they seemingly have their offensive skill players figured out.
Will These Team-Building Strategies Become a Trend?
Both of these strategies employed by the Rams and Bengals have been successful, I mean, they got to the Super Bowl, and both should remain in contention for the next several years. Is this something other teams could emulate and vault themselves into Super Bowl contention?
Other NFL franchises could emulate these strategies from the Rams and Bengals, whether it’s play-calling, defensive scheming, or in this case, roster construction. It wouldn’t shock me to see the old-school way of building an NFL roster from the “inside-out” give way to a more trade-focused approach like we see in other sports leagues like the NBA. Players are more apt now to take matters into their own hands when it comes to identifying a team or situation they’d like to be a part of, and aggressive NFL general managers are capitalizing.
Teams that are one to three pieces away from contention seem the most likely to employ this strategy. I’m looking at teams like:
Philadelphia Eagles
- Have three first-round picks (15th, 16th, 19th), have a modern NFL quarterback who can run, made the playoffs in 2021, and could use an impact player to bolster their talent, especially on defense.
Denver Broncos
- Have a top-ten first-round pick (9th), have numerous skill-position players, and a solid defense. In addition, The Broncos have the sixth-highest salary cap space available (per OverTheCap). Denver is likely a quarterback away from serious contention.
Los Angeles Chargers
- Already have their franchise quarterback in Justin Herbert, along with the fourth-highest salary cap space, only one priority free agent to sign (Mike Williams), and was a Brandon Staley time-out away from making the playoffs this past season.
Several more NFL franchises consider themselves close to playoff contention, and as we’ve seen in the NFL, teams can go from the outhouse to the penthouse in short order. Like the Bengals, who were 4-12 in 2020 to the Super Bowl runner-up this season. Building from the lines out seems to be the old-school way of thinking when it comes to roster construction, but as we’ve seen with the Rams dishing out their draft picks and Bengals fortifying their skill position players first, there’s more than one way to build a contender in today’s NFL.
