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‘Wake up sprinting, don’t be scared’: Inside the ultra aggressive, interdependent Rams team-build ecosystem
Jourdan Rodrigue Feb 10, 2022
71
Aaron Donald bypassed the San Francisco offensive line like a semi-truck rolling through a puddle, hooked an arm around quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, and yanked him down toward the turf.
Garoppolo spun in Donald’s grasp and flung a pass, too late and too high, that tipped off his target’s hands. Inside linebacker Travin Howard flew to the ball and, a millisecond later, pulled it out of the air and into his chest. Defensive tackle Greg Gaines wrapped himself around Howard and pulled his teammate to the ground so the Rams could run the last 1:09 off the clock and advance past the 49ers — for the first time in seven tries and in the NFC Championship Game — and on to the Super Bowl.
Or: A future Hall of Fame defensive tackle created a catalytic moment, and an inside linebacker and defensive lineman who were seventh and fourth-round draft picks in 2018 and 2019, respectively — all playing crucial minutes in the postseason — rose to meet it.
That is what the Rams’ team-build model looks like at its best. That moment, and the game still ahead of them Sunday, is what general manager Les Snead, head coach Sean McVay and COO Kevin Demoff envisioned when they committed wholly to a new type of team-build in 2017, after McVay was hired, and then kept pushing to evolve it in rapid time.
No parts of the Rams’ current ecosystem work without depending on the others: They acquire players using early-round draft picks that they believe have decreased in value because they’re perennially picking later in those rounds. Those picks are packaged and traded for proven high-performance players who become a part of L.A.’s “core” set of contracts (a group of players that also includes some free-agent acquisitions and a homegrown player in Donald).
They draft in the middle rounds (often trading back to load up on picks there) with a focus on players with complementary traits to their core. Their draftees are often expected to contribute early, on their cheaper rookie deals, and that means the coaching staff has to develop them and set them up schematically for success. Those players contributing at a high level allows the Rams’ staff to keep swapping picks for more tenured, high-performance players. The cycle continues only as all phases intertwine.
“Everybody talks about our ‘star power’ here, the big names, the guys who have made Pro Bowls and All-Pros and been successful throughout their NFL career,” three-time All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey said this week. “But we have guys who don’t get as much recognition, but they do their job. They excel in their roles week in and week out …
“Whoever you want to call a ‘star’ on this team, we can’t carry this team by ourselves.”
So how did the Rams get here? How can they continue to exist here?
“Wake up sprinting,” said general manager Les Snead, echoing a phrase he has repeated often over the last year, “Don’t be scared.”
‘If it’s inevitable, make it immediate’
When McVay was hired in 2017, he and Snead made a few immediate moves that proved foundational to the Rams’ roster structure over the next half-decade.
They signed veteran left tackle Andrew Whitworth — in part for his skill, but also to help mentor then second-year quarterback Jared Goff in the same way Whitworth once did for Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton. They also traded for Sammy Watkins, signed Robert Woods and drafted Cooper Kupp, overhauling their receiver room.
They already had Donald, and McVay believed they could develop stability at quarterback even after Goff’s terrible rookie season, which would allow them to put capital into the rest of the build. Throughout their first Super Bowl run in 2018 — success that came earlier than even McVay and Snead expected — they also experimented with veteran player acquisition (outside linebacker Dante Fowler, defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh, cornerbacks Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib).
But the Rams’ post-Super Bowl build shifted again, and in blockbuster fashion, when they traded for Ramsey in 2019, sending two first-round picks and a fourth-rounder to Jacksonville. They had watched for years the kind of attention Donald drew up front, how his elite and versatile skill set not only increased opportunity for the veteran players around him but also allowed them to draft more specifically to complement all that he does. They felt Ramsey could be a similar player, even as pundits and analysts raised their eyebrows at the cost.
“I think when you break through, at that point, there is your window,” Snead told The Athletic. “What are you going to do with it, how are you going to take advantage of it? How can you make it last, how can you make the most of it?
“The math says you should probably start thinking a little bit differently than the other 31 about the bets you make once you get there. Is it better to stay and pick late in the first round because we are a team that wins, or is it better to use that pick for a top-5 talent like Jalen, who has lived up to the billing?”
Since 2019, the Rams roster has changed dramatically. Their current Super Bowl roster features only seven technical “starters” from their 2018 Super Bowl appearance: Whitworth, right tackle Rob Havenstein, Woods, Kupp, punter Johnny Hekker, tight end Tyler Higbee and Donald. They have not hesitated in overhauling certain positions — including at quarterback — at times abruptly or even if they incur a dead-money hit. They also have not hesitated to let veteran players depart in free agency in order to return the compensatory picks that help them re-stock personnel via the draft.
“I think once you get in a window … there is this element where it gets a little bit easier to say, ‘Hey, if we make this bet, it has a definite chance to move the needle,'” said Snead. “I don’t necessarily consider us ‘faster’ than other people (at decision-making), but I do think that once we think something will help us — if it’s inevitable, make it immediate.”
Matthew Stafford (Kim Klement / USA Today)
Jourdan Rodrigue Feb 10, 2022
Aaron Donald bypassed the San Francisco offensive line like a semi-truck rolling through a puddle, hooked an arm around quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, and yanked him down toward the turf.
Garoppolo spun in Donald’s grasp and flung a pass, too late and too high, that tipped off his target’s hands. Inside linebacker Travin Howard flew to the ball and, a millisecond later, pulled it out of the air and into his chest. Defensive tackle Greg Gaines wrapped himself around Howard and pulled his teammate to the ground so the Rams could run the last 1:09 off the clock and advance past the 49ers — for the first time in seven tries and in the NFC Championship Game — and on to the Super Bowl.
Or: A future Hall of Fame defensive tackle created a catalytic moment, and an inside linebacker and defensive lineman who were seventh and fourth-round draft picks in 2018 and 2019, respectively — all playing crucial minutes in the postseason — rose to meet it.
That is what the Rams’ team-build model looks like at its best. That moment, and the game still ahead of them Sunday, is what general manager Les Snead, head coach Sean McVay and COO Kevin Demoff envisioned when they committed wholly to a new type of team-build in 2017, after McVay was hired, and then kept pushing to evolve it in rapid time.
No parts of the Rams’ current ecosystem work without depending on the others: They acquire players using early-round draft picks that they believe have decreased in value because they’re perennially picking later in those rounds. Those picks are packaged and traded for proven high-performance players who become a part of L.A.’s “core” set of contracts (a group of players that also includes some free-agent acquisitions and a homegrown player in Donald).
They draft in the middle rounds (often trading back to load up on picks there) with a focus on players with complementary traits to their core. Their draftees are often expected to contribute early, on their cheaper rookie deals, and that means the coaching staff has to develop them and set them up schematically for success. Those players contributing at a high level allows the Rams’ staff to keep swapping picks for more tenured, high-performance players. The cycle continues only as all phases intertwine.
“Everybody talks about our ‘star power’ here, the big names, the guys who have made Pro Bowls and All-Pros and been successful throughout their NFL career,” three-time All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey said this week. “But we have guys who don’t get as much recognition, but they do their job. They excel in their roles week in and week out …
“Whoever you want to call a ‘star’ on this team, we can’t carry this team by ourselves.”
So how did the Rams get here? How can they continue to exist here?
“Wake up sprinting,” said general manager Les Snead, echoing a phrase he has repeated often over the last year, “Don’t be scared.”
‘If it’s inevitable, make it immediate’
When McVay was hired in 2017, he and Snead made a few immediate moves that proved foundational to the Rams’ roster structure over the next half-decade.
They signed veteran left tackle Andrew Whitworth — in part for his skill, but also to help mentor then second-year quarterback Jared Goff in the same way Whitworth once did for Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton. They also traded for Sammy Watkins, signed Robert Woods and drafted Cooper Kupp, overhauling their receiver room.
They already had Donald, and McVay believed they could develop stability at quarterback even after Goff’s terrible rookie season, which would allow them to put capital into the rest of the build. Throughout their first Super Bowl run in 2018 — success that came earlier than even McVay and Snead expected — they also experimented with veteran player acquisition (outside linebacker Dante Fowler, defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh, cornerbacks Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib).
But the Rams’ post-Super Bowl build shifted again, and in blockbuster fashion, when they traded for Ramsey in 2019, sending two first-round picks and a fourth-rounder to Jacksonville. They had watched for years the kind of attention Donald drew up front, how his elite and versatile skill set not only increased opportunity for the veteran players around him but also allowed them to draft more specifically to complement all that he does. They felt Ramsey could be a similar player, even as pundits and analysts raised their eyebrows at the cost.
“I think when you break through, at that point, there is your window,” Snead told The Athletic. “What are you going to do with it, how are you going to take advantage of it? How can you make it last, how can you make the most of it?
“The math says you should probably start thinking a little bit differently than the other 31 about the bets you make once you get there. Is it better to stay and pick late in the first round because we are a team that wins, or is it better to use that pick for a top-5 talent like Jalen, who has lived up to the billing?”
Since 2019, the Rams roster has changed dramatically. Their current Super Bowl roster features only seven technical “starters” from their 2018 Super Bowl appearance: Whitworth, right tackle Rob Havenstein, Woods, Kupp, punter Johnny Hekker, tight end Tyler Higbee and Donald. They have not hesitated in overhauling certain positions — including at quarterback — at times abruptly or even if they incur a dead-money hit. They also have not hesitated to let veteran players depart in free agency in order to return the compensatory picks that help them re-stock personnel via the draft.
“I think once you get in a window … there is this element where it gets a little bit easier to say, ‘Hey, if we make this bet, it has a definite chance to move the needle,'” said Snead. “I don’t necessarily consider us ‘faster’ than other people (at decision-making), but I do think that once we think something will help us — if it’s inevitable, make it immediate.”
Matthew Stafford (Kim Klement / USA Today)
Last January, the Rams began to push their model further. They pivoted at quarterback with another blockbuster trade, sending first-round picks in 2022 and 2023, a 2021 third-rounder and Goff to the Lions in exchange for Stafford. McVay and Stafford have meticulously evolved McVay’s lauded offensive system — a system that, for all its early success, had started to get solved too easily by defenses throughout the NFL in 2019 and 2020. Despite this season’s rocky November, Stafford quarterbacked the Rams to the Super Bowl (his first in a 13-year career) one year to the day of the Rams’ trade for him.
“He’s been better than I thought,” said McVay in October, “And I thought he was going to be really good.”
In November, the Rams sent 2022 second- and third-round picks to Denver for veteran pass-rusher Von Miller, a former Super Bowl MVP. They wanted to rush four players more consistently (which they were able to do late in the regular season), blitz less and work more mismatches with their coverage on the back end.
The Rams finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in pass-rush and run-stop win rate. Miller was graded as the top pass-rusher in the postseason, according to Pro Football Focus, with Donald just a couple of spots behind him on the list.
Just 10 days after news of the Miller trade broke, the Rams — in part motivated by a push from their own players — agreed to terms with Odell Beckham Jr. after he had requested and received his release from Cleveland. Beckham scored six touchdowns in his first nine games with the Rams and caught nine passes for 113 yards in a crucial effort against the 49ers in the NFC title game.
Lesser-discussed but still important veteran acquisitions included the signing of outside linebacker Leonard Floyd to a team-friendly one-year deal in 2020 after he underachieved on his rookie deal with the Bears. In Los Angeles, Floyd has thrived — he recorded 20 sacks in two seasons and earned a $64 million extension last spring. This August, the Rams traded for running back Sony Michel after second-year back Cam Akers tore his Achilles, and in January they coaxed safety Eric Weddle out of retirement for a postseason run after losing both starting safeties to injury.
When the Rams re-built their run game to better accentuate the heavier-personnel concepts Michel is built for, they snapped their November losing streak and leaned on his steady, downhill running style to rebalance their offense. Weddle’s savviness helped the Rams beat the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game — the first time they had beaten their division rival in seven tries, and they did so in large part because they changed their entire defensive scheme for one week only from their progressive two-high shell to dropping Weddle into the box to fill gaps and suffocate San Francisco’s run game.
Their moves have worked. The Rams couldn’t have known for certain that they would, but they weren’t about to stand pat.
“That’s the thing that’s so great about Les, and so great about Sean — they’re never content,” said Tony Pastoors, the Rams’ VP of football and business administration (i.e., their salary cap expert). “And it’s always (about) trying to find a way to get better.”
‘They’re names to us’
Many, if not most, NFL teams believe that building a team happens through the draft. The Rams believe that too — just in a slightly different way. Their big moves don’t work if the players around them can’t contribute in meaningful ways, hopefully while still on their rookie deals.
In fact, while some pundits call the Rams an “All-Star” team (Miller joked this year that showing up to practice felt like “playing in the Pro Bowl”), they actually rank No. 6 in the NFL in “homegrown” players (players they drafted and developed into role players). Twenty-four players on their current roster were their own draft picks, and nine were undrafted free agent signings. The Rams also have had the 12th-highest number of draft picks (including the third-largest number of compensatory picks) in the NFL since 2016 (59, according to Overthecap.com analyst Nick Korte).
Balancing those larger-scale moves with these drafted players forced the Rams to overhaul their draft methodology over the last five years.
When McVay was hired in 2017, longtime Rams scouts and executives noted a change in communication throughout the draft process. McVay didn’t just tell Snead and his staff what players he wanted or what traits he needed. He also told them what he didn’t need and why, based on the way he believed players needed to complement each other within his scheme.
Tight ends needed to be a mismatch in the passing game, for example, but they didn’t need to be exceptional blockers. Offensive linemen needed to have lateral agility and good hands to run McVay’s outside zone run concepts, but they could also be undersized if it lent to that quickness. Eliminating players with traits that would not translate into his system helped narrow scouts’ focus.
“Sean is such a good teacher,” said Snead. “So when he teaches you what he needs … he teaches it so you know exactly what you’re looking for, both tangibly and intangibly. If we need a ‘Z,’ here’s a bucket that meets the standards. That bucket becomes pretty clear, concise.
“He doesn’t necessarily come in and say, ‘I want this player’ or whatever. He says, ‘This is what we’re trying to get these positions to do, here’s the why.’”
In part, that’s how the Rams found Kupp. Snead had quietly been tracking Kupp for several years due to his annual participation as a counselor in the Manning Passing Academy. Peyton Manning had praised Kupp’s abilities to Snead, and McVay wanted a second friendly target for Goff (with Woods being the first) who could block and run a variety of concepts in the intermediate layers of the field. He needed to get open quickly and in lots of different ways that didn’t require running in a straight line.
So the Rams focused their study of Kupp on their personal interviews with him, his aptitude testing and his GPS tracking data gathered while running routes against defensive backs at the Senior Bowl. When Kupp ran a slow 40-time at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis — which ultimately made his draft stock sink — Snead started grinning up in their coaches’ box at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Rams didn’t have a first-round pick that year.
“He didn’t run as fast, and I remember being up in the box and (an analyst) said, ‘Aw, man, he didn’t run that fast,” said Brian Hill, the area scout who helped evaluate Kupp. “And Les is like, ‘No, that’s great. I love it.’”
Kupp was one of two Rams third-round picks in 2017 (the other was safety John Johnson, who quickly became a starter). In 2021, Kupp became the NFL’s fourth modern-era Triple Crown receiver.
The Rams found Jordan Fuller, a sixth-round pick in 2020, using similar processes. That spring, they modernized their defensive scheme under new coordinator Brandon Staley to feature two-high coverage shells, among many other qualities. They needed their safeties to navigate a lot of space quickly post-snap (the Rams shift coverage out of two-high after the ball is snapped more frequently than almost any other team in the NFL), but also to diagnose full route-concepts pre-snap.
Again, they threw out the 40-time that sunk Fuller’s draft stock in the eyes of many other teams. Instead, they prioritized his problem-solving speed and football acumen, and matched similar GPS data with film of his play at Ohio State to prove how quickly he was able to get into position. They drafted Fuller with pick No. 199, and he started for them as a rookie. In his second season, he became a team captain and called the Rams’ defensive signals before an ankle injury sidelined him for the postseason.
“What do they have to be able to do, and what can we forgive?” said J.W. Jordan, who was a top draft analyst for the Rams for the last several years before he moved into a consulting role last spring. “You can manufacture a guy in your defense, playing probably better than his ‘base talent level’ would allow him to play, if you’re doing it the right way.”
This is where the respective pieces of the build become dependent on one another. Using high-round draft capital to bring in veteran players means the Rams can’t use it to draft. That creates a need for the Rams to find starting-caliber or contributing depth players in the middle rounds, where prospects usually are inherently flawed in some way.
But because the veteran players bring a more complete set of traits into a lineup, the younger players don’t actually need to be “perfect” prospects. They need to have a few above-average traits that specifically complement the veterans, all within what the scheme is asking each of them to do. Snead calls this finding a player’s “superpower” through evaluation.
“Once you get into the later part of the first round and then the second round … they’re all going to have a weakness,” said Jordan. “By having specific things that you’re looking for, and not necessarily looking for the ‘perfect’ player, by having the structure and communication between the coaches and scouts work so well, you’re able to potentially find someone in the fourth round that, for you, will perform like a first- or second-rounder.”
Snead — described by Jordan as a “football guy who is also a social scientist” — began to implement bias-removal techniques into their workflow. For example, he doesn’t offer concrete opinions on prospects until late in the draft year, so that his scouts’ analysis aren’t swayed by their boss. Scouts are intentionally separated through the week so they can better form their own strong opinions on prospects, before coming together for meetings and debate. They largely no longer attend the majority of the annual All-Star prospect events as a staff (scouts can still choose to attend if they want) because Snead found they could save about two weeks per event by receiving film of drills and practice sessions and working from home instead — and they could draw their own conclusions on prospects without the sway of a crowd of other evaluators.
The Rams’ analysts built a database called JARS that is specifically attuned to identifying desired traits, which they use to compile evaluations of prospects. Most teams that have an analytics staff have a similar program in place. But Snead also stopped asking his scouts for written reports — Jordan said that often, scouts tend to overwrite prospect evaluations by hundreds of words and that incrementally-wasted time builds up over weeks and months. Instead, the Rams did an audit of their scouting terminology over several seasons and built a data-input program that not only shortens the time the scout spends “writing” a prospect report, but which more easily translates into JARS.
The Rams believe that each one of these changes, large or small, works toward maximizing their chances of selecting the correct player in an area of the draft where doing so is often a 50/50 shot at best. In Jordan’s mind, if three or four players in each class pan out, it’s the sign of a good process.
Most of this year’s Rams rookie class is, or spent much of the season on, injured reserve, but rookie linebacker Ernest Jones vaulted into a starting role at inside linebacker in the second half of the season. When he was injured, the Rams leaned on undrafted free agent inside linebacker Troy Reeder not only to start, but also to call defensive signals in three postseason wins. Nick Scott, a former seventh-round pick, is starting at safety in place of Fuller and has drawn widespread attention for his momentum-swinging hits in both the wild-card and NFC Championship games. Starting center Brian Allen, a Pro Bowl alternate for the first time in his career, was a fourth-round pick in 2018, while outside linebacker Obo Okoronkwo, a fifth-round pick in 2018, has worked his way into the No. 3 pass-rush spot behind Floyd and Miller. The Rams non-free agent receivers (Kupp, Van Jefferson, Ben Skowronek) were all drafted outside the first round, while undrafted free agent tight end Kendall Blanton has moved into a featured role due to Higbee’s MCL sprain.
“They’re names to us,” said Ramsey. “They’re big-time players for us. We got all the faith in them. If we didn’t feel like they were big-time players, we wouldn’t have them on the field.”
Nick Scott, left, and Ernest Jones (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
“He’s been better than I thought,” said McVay in October, “And I thought he was going to be really good.”
In November, the Rams sent 2022 second- and third-round picks to Denver for veteran pass-rusher Von Miller, a former Super Bowl MVP. They wanted to rush four players more consistently (which they were able to do late in the regular season), blitz less and work more mismatches with their coverage on the back end.
The Rams finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in pass-rush and run-stop win rate. Miller was graded as the top pass-rusher in the postseason, according to Pro Football Focus, with Donald just a couple of spots behind him on the list.
Just 10 days after news of the Miller trade broke, the Rams — in part motivated by a push from their own players — agreed to terms with Odell Beckham Jr. after he had requested and received his release from Cleveland. Beckham scored six touchdowns in his first nine games with the Rams and caught nine passes for 113 yards in a crucial effort against the 49ers in the NFC title game.
Lesser-discussed but still important veteran acquisitions included the signing of outside linebacker Leonard Floyd to a team-friendly one-year deal in 2020 after he underachieved on his rookie deal with the Bears. In Los Angeles, Floyd has thrived — he recorded 20 sacks in two seasons and earned a $64 million extension last spring. This August, the Rams traded for running back Sony Michel after second-year back Cam Akers tore his Achilles, and in January they coaxed safety Eric Weddle out of retirement for a postseason run after losing both starting safeties to injury.
When the Rams re-built their run game to better accentuate the heavier-personnel concepts Michel is built for, they snapped their November losing streak and leaned on his steady, downhill running style to rebalance their offense. Weddle’s savviness helped the Rams beat the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game — the first time they had beaten their division rival in seven tries, and they did so in large part because they changed their entire defensive scheme for one week only from their progressive two-high shell to dropping Weddle into the box to fill gaps and suffocate San Francisco’s run game.
Their moves have worked. The Rams couldn’t have known for certain that they would, but they weren’t about to stand pat.
“That’s the thing that’s so great about Les, and so great about Sean — they’re never content,” said Tony Pastoors, the Rams’ VP of football and business administration (i.e., their salary cap expert). “And it’s always (about) trying to find a way to get better.”
‘They’re names to us’
Many, if not most, NFL teams believe that building a team happens through the draft. The Rams believe that too — just in a slightly different way. Their big moves don’t work if the players around them can’t contribute in meaningful ways, hopefully while still on their rookie deals.
In fact, while some pundits call the Rams an “All-Star” team (Miller joked this year that showing up to practice felt like “playing in the Pro Bowl”), they actually rank No. 6 in the NFL in “homegrown” players (players they drafted and developed into role players). Twenty-four players on their current roster were their own draft picks, and nine were undrafted free agent signings. The Rams also have had the 12th-highest number of draft picks (including the third-largest number of compensatory picks) in the NFL since 2016 (59, according to Overthecap.com analyst Nick Korte).
Balancing those larger-scale moves with these drafted players forced the Rams to overhaul their draft methodology over the last five years.
When McVay was hired in 2017, longtime Rams scouts and executives noted a change in communication throughout the draft process. McVay didn’t just tell Snead and his staff what players he wanted or what traits he needed. He also told them what he didn’t need and why, based on the way he believed players needed to complement each other within his scheme.
Tight ends needed to be a mismatch in the passing game, for example, but they didn’t need to be exceptional blockers. Offensive linemen needed to have lateral agility and good hands to run McVay’s outside zone run concepts, but they could also be undersized if it lent to that quickness. Eliminating players with traits that would not translate into his system helped narrow scouts’ focus.
“Sean is such a good teacher,” said Snead. “So when he teaches you what he needs … he teaches it so you know exactly what you’re looking for, both tangibly and intangibly. If we need a ‘Z,’ here’s a bucket that meets the standards. That bucket becomes pretty clear, concise.
“He doesn’t necessarily come in and say, ‘I want this player’ or whatever. He says, ‘This is what we’re trying to get these positions to do, here’s the why.’”
In part, that’s how the Rams found Kupp. Snead had quietly been tracking Kupp for several years due to his annual participation as a counselor in the Manning Passing Academy. Peyton Manning had praised Kupp’s abilities to Snead, and McVay wanted a second friendly target for Goff (with Woods being the first) who could block and run a variety of concepts in the intermediate layers of the field. He needed to get open quickly and in lots of different ways that didn’t require running in a straight line.
So the Rams focused their study of Kupp on their personal interviews with him, his aptitude testing and his GPS tracking data gathered while running routes against defensive backs at the Senior Bowl. When Kupp ran a slow 40-time at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis — which ultimately made his draft stock sink — Snead started grinning up in their coaches’ box at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Rams didn’t have a first-round pick that year.
“He didn’t run as fast, and I remember being up in the box and (an analyst) said, ‘Aw, man, he didn’t run that fast,” said Brian Hill, the area scout who helped evaluate Kupp. “And Les is like, ‘No, that’s great. I love it.’”
Kupp was one of two Rams third-round picks in 2017 (the other was safety John Johnson, who quickly became a starter). In 2021, Kupp became the NFL’s fourth modern-era Triple Crown receiver.
The Rams found Jordan Fuller, a sixth-round pick in 2020, using similar processes. That spring, they modernized their defensive scheme under new coordinator Brandon Staley to feature two-high coverage shells, among many other qualities. They needed their safeties to navigate a lot of space quickly post-snap (the Rams shift coverage out of two-high after the ball is snapped more frequently than almost any other team in the NFL), but also to diagnose full route-concepts pre-snap.
Again, they threw out the 40-time that sunk Fuller’s draft stock in the eyes of many other teams. Instead, they prioritized his problem-solving speed and football acumen, and matched similar GPS data with film of his play at Ohio State to prove how quickly he was able to get into position. They drafted Fuller with pick No. 199, and he started for them as a rookie. In his second season, he became a team captain and called the Rams’ defensive signals before an ankle injury sidelined him for the postseason.
“What do they have to be able to do, and what can we forgive?” said J.W. Jordan, who was a top draft analyst for the Rams for the last several years before he moved into a consulting role last spring. “You can manufacture a guy in your defense, playing probably better than his ‘base talent level’ would allow him to play, if you’re doing it the right way.”
This is where the respective pieces of the build become dependent on one another. Using high-round draft capital to bring in veteran players means the Rams can’t use it to draft. That creates a need for the Rams to find starting-caliber or contributing depth players in the middle rounds, where prospects usually are inherently flawed in some way.
But because the veteran players bring a more complete set of traits into a lineup, the younger players don’t actually need to be “perfect” prospects. They need to have a few above-average traits that specifically complement the veterans, all within what the scheme is asking each of them to do. Snead calls this finding a player’s “superpower” through evaluation.
“Once you get into the later part of the first round and then the second round … they’re all going to have a weakness,” said Jordan. “By having specific things that you’re looking for, and not necessarily looking for the ‘perfect’ player, by having the structure and communication between the coaches and scouts work so well, you’re able to potentially find someone in the fourth round that, for you, will perform like a first- or second-rounder.”
Snead — described by Jordan as a “football guy who is also a social scientist” — began to implement bias-removal techniques into their workflow. For example, he doesn’t offer concrete opinions on prospects until late in the draft year, so that his scouts’ analysis aren’t swayed by their boss. Scouts are intentionally separated through the week so they can better form their own strong opinions on prospects, before coming together for meetings and debate. They largely no longer attend the majority of the annual All-Star prospect events as a staff (scouts can still choose to attend if they want) because Snead found they could save about two weeks per event by receiving film of drills and practice sessions and working from home instead — and they could draw their own conclusions on prospects without the sway of a crowd of other evaluators.
The Rams’ analysts built a database called JARS that is specifically attuned to identifying desired traits, which they use to compile evaluations of prospects. Most teams that have an analytics staff have a similar program in place. But Snead also stopped asking his scouts for written reports — Jordan said that often, scouts tend to overwrite prospect evaluations by hundreds of words and that incrementally-wasted time builds up over weeks and months. Instead, the Rams did an audit of their scouting terminology over several seasons and built a data-input program that not only shortens the time the scout spends “writing” a prospect report, but which more easily translates into JARS.
The Rams believe that each one of these changes, large or small, works toward maximizing their chances of selecting the correct player in an area of the draft where doing so is often a 50/50 shot at best. In Jordan’s mind, if three or four players in each class pan out, it’s the sign of a good process.
Most of this year’s Rams rookie class is, or spent much of the season on, injured reserve, but rookie linebacker Ernest Jones vaulted into a starting role at inside linebacker in the second half of the season. When he was injured, the Rams leaned on undrafted free agent inside linebacker Troy Reeder not only to start, but also to call defensive signals in three postseason wins. Nick Scott, a former seventh-round pick, is starting at safety in place of Fuller and has drawn widespread attention for his momentum-swinging hits in both the wild-card and NFC Championship games. Starting center Brian Allen, a Pro Bowl alternate for the first time in his career, was a fourth-round pick in 2018, while outside linebacker Obo Okoronkwo, a fifth-round pick in 2018, has worked his way into the No. 3 pass-rush spot behind Floyd and Miller. The Rams non-free agent receivers (Kupp, Van Jefferson, Ben Skowronek) were all drafted outside the first round, while undrafted free agent tight end Kendall Blanton has moved into a featured role due to Higbee’s MCL sprain.
“They’re names to us,” said Ramsey. “They’re big-time players for us. We got all the faith in them. If we didn’t feel like they were big-time players, we wouldn’t have them on the field.”
Nick Scott, left, and Ernest Jones (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
‘They are gonna melt’
A coaching staff that can develop young players quickly and effectively is another key piece of the Rams’ ecosystem. Team executives say that McVay, who loses multiple assistants to other teams each offseason, has a knack for finding coaches who are also great teachers.
“It’s a huge part of it,” said McVay. “People who love it, want to help people reach their highest potential, where they’re inspiring them but also challenging them, where there’s some urgency and there’s some respect in terms of helping those guys reach their highest potential.”
Snead, 51, wasn’t certain whether the Rams would retain him as he searched for the franchise’s new head coach in 2017. Still, he helped executives and ownership identify McVay as the lead candidate in part because he realized that McVay, only 30 at the time, was in many ways who Snead himself is — and also in many ways who he is not.
McVay is an extrovert and an expert communicator. His office shelves are crammed with leadership books held in place by artificial plants at each end.
Snead is an introvert and an out-of-structure thinker who tends to speak in colloquialisms and descriptors that require translation. He and Kara, his wife, have a glass-sided cottage in their backyard shelved wall-to-wall with fiction, biographies, books that analyze decision-making and books about sociology and psychology.
Yet Snead was drawn to McVay as a person who could immediately translate him and his ideas, as McVay was drawn to those ideas and Snead’s commitment to making them happen as McVay communicated them.
Both are “why”-obsessed, culture-obsessed and football-obsessed.
“(Les is) fearless. Sean is fearless,” said Demoff. “And so when you get into it, people who are passionate about culture, passionate about developing people (and) relationships — and who are fearless — those are people you want to go to work with every day. I love watching the two of them work.”
In many ways, the Rams’ team-build as a whole reflects the two. This roster, and its culture, is what happens when two ends of a spectrum come together over a shared set of bonds, hopes, goals and plans. Snead believes the culture has become something almost sentient.
“The culture of the ecosystem — wake up sprinting, don’t be scared; we’re not trying to go 8-8 — is alive and well,” said Snead. “That probably supports, or manifests, everyone’s natural courage. And when you have a band of brothers in the building doing it all around you it can become contagious.”
From left: Odell Beckham Jr., Van Jefferson and Cooper Kupp (Matt Pendleton / USA Today)
But the Rams’ culture also reflects its veteran players — even newly-acquired ones — who have taken it upon themselves to help bring up the younger ones. Whitworth, for example, started informal “after-school” tutoring sessions for up-and-coming offensive linemen after Thursday practices. After Jefferson had a bad game in November, Beckham quietly pulled him aside and talked him through it. Kupp has his own office at the Rams’ practice facilities and holds film sessions there for younger players even as he helped McVay and Stafford create new layers in their current offense. Ramsey buys everybody (even the equipment managers) lunch on Fridays and pays for offseason training for some of the younger defensive backs who, because they’re working on their first contracts, often don’t have the means for higher-level external coaching.
“Where we have been so fortunate … is what some of our All-World players, our established veterans (have done) for those younger players,” said Pastoors. “It’s cliché to say that great players make everyone around them better, but for us, it’s true. … Those guys have helped our young guys develop at a much faster rate than I think people truly understand or appreciate.”
Demoff and Snead describe a football obsession that radiates throughout the Rams’ complex in part established by core players, in part by Snead and McVay and their respective staffs. Within that, the Rams don’t micromanage players or try to make them become something they aren’t.
“When you feel like you can go to ‘work’ and (have) it not feel like ‘work,’ then you can truly enjoy what you do,” said Ramsey.
A living culture, players and coaches say, that takes care of itself.
“I think the thing about playing here is when you’re not about what we’re about, when you’re not about playing for the guys next to you, I think you can stick out like a sore thumb,” said Kupp, shortly after the Rams signed Beckham. “Guys play for each other. They work day in and day out so that when we step on the field, you are taking care of the guy next to you.”
Snead considered Kupp’s comments, then added, “I don’t think they’re going to stick out … They’re almost gonna melt.”
Three weeks ago in Tampa Bay, Stafford and the Rams offense took the field with 42 seconds left in a tied game. Fourteen seconds later, Stafford stood in the pocket as an inevitable A-gap hit bore down on him and unfurled a perfect 44-yard pass downfield to Kupp, who had space ahead of his defender. Stafford peeled himself off the grass and sprinted downfield with his offensive linemen to clock the next snap and set up a field goal try with four seconds left. Matt Gay hit his 30-yard kick attempt, and the Rams’ sideline poured onto the field to celebrate.
Or: The quarterback who came to the Rams via high-risk, high-capital trade threw the ball 44 yards downfield to the former third-round draft pick receiver who helped them justify their commitment to a modernized draft process, which set up a game-winning field goal by a kicker who was signed off another team’s practice squad in 2020.
“Good, OK, we did our job, that’s what we’re supposed to do,” said Snead, “but the thing that runs through my mind is that those guys have to do it. … It’s cool when you see the humans actually having to do it, having to live in those moments.”
That moment was the build, and it was also the efforts of the players, coaches and staff within it. It was everything at once because that’s what it’s supposed to be. The only way this truly works is if each piece of it is wholly dependent on the other; phases of the ecosystem existing in total mutualism.
That balance is fragile. If any one phase fails — if McVay fails to replace his assistants with the right people or if Snead and his staff tank a draft class and there’s even a brief pause in the contributions from their younger players — the entire ecosystem crumbles. The Rams are walking along a high-wire, after all, and they’re picking up more to carry with each step.
But at this moment, their next stop along that wire is a Super Bowl.
“Every team has to go find their own way to build,” said Demoff. “This is one way that we’ve done it. It’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s not for the faint of wallet. We have to prove that this is going to be successful.
“We haven’t won anything yet,” he continued. “We need to go prove that this can work.”
Wake up sprinting, don’t be scared.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Harry How, Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
What did you think of this story?
A coaching staff that can develop young players quickly and effectively is another key piece of the Rams’ ecosystem. Team executives say that McVay, who loses multiple assistants to other teams each offseason, has a knack for finding coaches who are also great teachers.
“It’s a huge part of it,” said McVay. “People who love it, want to help people reach their highest potential, where they’re inspiring them but also challenging them, where there’s some urgency and there’s some respect in terms of helping those guys reach their highest potential.”
Snead, 51, wasn’t certain whether the Rams would retain him as he searched for the franchise’s new head coach in 2017. Still, he helped executives and ownership identify McVay as the lead candidate in part because he realized that McVay, only 30 at the time, was in many ways who Snead himself is — and also in many ways who he is not.
McVay is an extrovert and an expert communicator. His office shelves are crammed with leadership books held in place by artificial plants at each end.
Snead is an introvert and an out-of-structure thinker who tends to speak in colloquialisms and descriptors that require translation. He and Kara, his wife, have a glass-sided cottage in their backyard shelved wall-to-wall with fiction, biographies, books that analyze decision-making and books about sociology and psychology.
Yet Snead was drawn to McVay as a person who could immediately translate him and his ideas, as McVay was drawn to those ideas and Snead’s commitment to making them happen as McVay communicated them.
Both are “why”-obsessed, culture-obsessed and football-obsessed.
“(Les is) fearless. Sean is fearless,” said Demoff. “And so when you get into it, people who are passionate about culture, passionate about developing people (and) relationships — and who are fearless — those are people you want to go to work with every day. I love watching the two of them work.”
In many ways, the Rams’ team-build as a whole reflects the two. This roster, and its culture, is what happens when two ends of a spectrum come together over a shared set of bonds, hopes, goals and plans. Snead believes the culture has become something almost sentient.
“The culture of the ecosystem — wake up sprinting, don’t be scared; we’re not trying to go 8-8 — is alive and well,” said Snead. “That probably supports, or manifests, everyone’s natural courage. And when you have a band of brothers in the building doing it all around you it can become contagious.”
From left: Odell Beckham Jr., Van Jefferson and Cooper Kupp (Matt Pendleton / USA Today)
But the Rams’ culture also reflects its veteran players — even newly-acquired ones — who have taken it upon themselves to help bring up the younger ones. Whitworth, for example, started informal “after-school” tutoring sessions for up-and-coming offensive linemen after Thursday practices. After Jefferson had a bad game in November, Beckham quietly pulled him aside and talked him through it. Kupp has his own office at the Rams’ practice facilities and holds film sessions there for younger players even as he helped McVay and Stafford create new layers in their current offense. Ramsey buys everybody (even the equipment managers) lunch on Fridays and pays for offseason training for some of the younger defensive backs who, because they’re working on their first contracts, often don’t have the means for higher-level external coaching.
“Where we have been so fortunate … is what some of our All-World players, our established veterans (have done) for those younger players,” said Pastoors. “It’s cliché to say that great players make everyone around them better, but for us, it’s true. … Those guys have helped our young guys develop at a much faster rate than I think people truly understand or appreciate.”
Demoff and Snead describe a football obsession that radiates throughout the Rams’ complex in part established by core players, in part by Snead and McVay and their respective staffs. Within that, the Rams don’t micromanage players or try to make them become something they aren’t.
“When you feel like you can go to ‘work’ and (have) it not feel like ‘work,’ then you can truly enjoy what you do,” said Ramsey.
A living culture, players and coaches say, that takes care of itself.
“I think the thing about playing here is when you’re not about what we’re about, when you’re not about playing for the guys next to you, I think you can stick out like a sore thumb,” said Kupp, shortly after the Rams signed Beckham. “Guys play for each other. They work day in and day out so that when we step on the field, you are taking care of the guy next to you.”
Snead considered Kupp’s comments, then added, “I don’t think they’re going to stick out … They’re almost gonna melt.”
Three weeks ago in Tampa Bay, Stafford and the Rams offense took the field with 42 seconds left in a tied game. Fourteen seconds later, Stafford stood in the pocket as an inevitable A-gap hit bore down on him and unfurled a perfect 44-yard pass downfield to Kupp, who had space ahead of his defender. Stafford peeled himself off the grass and sprinted downfield with his offensive linemen to clock the next snap and set up a field goal try with four seconds left. Matt Gay hit his 30-yard kick attempt, and the Rams’ sideline poured onto the field to celebrate.
Or: The quarterback who came to the Rams via high-risk, high-capital trade threw the ball 44 yards downfield to the former third-round draft pick receiver who helped them justify their commitment to a modernized draft process, which set up a game-winning field goal by a kicker who was signed off another team’s practice squad in 2020.
“Good, OK, we did our job, that’s what we’re supposed to do,” said Snead, “but the thing that runs through my mind is that those guys have to do it. … It’s cool when you see the humans actually having to do it, having to live in those moments.”
That moment was the build, and it was also the efforts of the players, coaches and staff within it. It was everything at once because that’s what it’s supposed to be. The only way this truly works is if each piece of it is wholly dependent on the other; phases of the ecosystem existing in total mutualism.
That balance is fragile. If any one phase fails — if McVay fails to replace his assistants with the right people or if Snead and his staff tank a draft class and there’s even a brief pause in the contributions from their younger players — the entire ecosystem crumbles. The Rams are walking along a high-wire, after all, and they’re picking up more to carry with each step.
But at this moment, their next stop along that wire is a Super Bowl.
“Every team has to go find their own way to build,” said Demoff. “This is one way that we’ve done it. It’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s not for the faint of wallet. We have to prove that this is going to be successful.
“We haven’t won anything yet,” he continued. “We need to go prove that this can work.”
Wake up sprinting, don’t be scared.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Harry How, Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
What did you think of this story?
Oram: As tensions rise between LeBron James and Rob Pelinka, where will Lakers draw the line?
By Bill Oram Feb 23, 2022
285
LeBron James and the Lakers are heading for a divorce.
Or, like with so many other relationships that have teetered on the brink of a break-up, they will find a way to reconcile.
Whichever way this goes, the events of the past week have proven something that has often been overlooked in the first four years of LeBron’s Lakers tenure: The gift of his presence is not without an expiration date.
This was always made abundantly clear to his past employers. When he signed a four-year contract with the Lakers in 2018, James bucked his tradition of signing one-year deals in Cleveland, repeatedly leveraging his own looming free agency to keep the pressure on Cavaliers brass.
There has never been that kind of urgency with the Lakers.
Maybe it was the fact that he already owned two mansions in L.A. Or the fact his production company was in the process of becoming a major player in Hollywood. Or that no one knew he would be playing at a league-altering level at age 37.
Whatever the reason, the Lakers appear to have taken for granted that whenever James decided to sail off into the sunset, he would take Sunset Boulevard to get there.
And as a likely result of that, there have been far more wasted years, including this 27-31 season, than there ever were in Cleveland and Miami.
That illusion of permanence has now been shattered, thanks not only to a series of passive-aggressive missives from James that make it clear he was frustrated by the Lakers inaction at the trade deadline, but also, in a conversation with The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd, entertaining the prospect of returning to Cleveland and explicitly stating his final year will be spent playing alongside his son — wherever that may be.
This has to all come as a shock to the Lakers and especially their vice president of basketball operations, Rob Pelinka, who has repeatedly yielded to James and the appropriately-named Klutch Sports Group that represents him.
Why appropriate?
Because James and agent Rich Paul long grabbed hold of the Lakers organization and are now beginning to really squeeze.
The situation is tense enough that one source close to the Lakers likened it to the early days of a war.
So far, the Lakers haven’t shown a particular willingness to engage in battle with their superstar, with sources saying that Pelinka has insisted internally that there are no hard feelings between the two sides.
But even if it is for now a one-sided war, by digging their heels in and not giving James everything that he wants has the potential to be received as a form of aggression — a battle tactic in its own right.
Pelinka erred when he said there was “alignment” between the front office and the Lakers superstars after the team failed to make a trade at the deadline. There quite clearly was not.
It remains murky, however, what exactly Pelinka was supposed to do at the deadline, and to what end.
If the Lakers traded their one available first rounder, a 2027 pick, and it didn’t make them a contender — which by now feels completely out of reach — it would have only limited their ability to improve the team in the offseason.
It’s obvious that James wanted him to do something. But Pelinka no doubt remembered that the last time he yielded to James’ management instincts, he got saddled with Russell Westbrook.
It is notable that maybe for the first time in James’ tenure, he did not get what he wanted out of Pelinka.
And now there is a divide between two of the key pillars in the unorthodox power structure of the Lakers that includes Jeanie Buss, Pelinka, James and Klutch, and much of the Rambis family tree.
As is true for the dynamic between any NBA star and his team, what’s best for James is not always what’s best for the Lakers. Pelinka shoulders at least some responsibility for the long-term health of the organization
That is of course not of as much interest to James as he chases a fifth title and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring record.
And it only makes sense that he would focus his frustration on Pelinka’s inactivity at the trade deadline, because if he were to peel back any additional layers of the team’s roster, he would see his fingerprints all over it, too.
It’s impossible to know where all of this leads. James has the leverage to force a trade out of Los Angeles this summer, if that’s something he is interested in. He clearly has no great loyalty to Pelinka, the man who pushed the Lakers chips in to acquire James’ chosen co-star, Anthony Davis.
Why should he, considering the roster construction in each of James’ other three seasons in L.A?
And if James is done with Pelinka but not ready to be done with L.A. then doesn’t Jeanie Buss have to at least consider making a change at the top of her family’s business?
If James feels like the Lakers are not doing everything to maximize his golden years and he sees that as them pushing him away then, well, he might as well already be gone.
That heat you’re feeling is coming from the flamethrower James is pointing at Pelinka.
There is a certain irony that it is Pelinka who is now being pushed around by a Lakers superstar and his powerful agent. For nearly two decades, Pelinka was that agent, pressuring the Lakers in his own way on behalf of Kobe Bryant.
The Lakers are a superstar-driven franchise, a fact Pelinka embodies perhaps to a fault.
The philosophy can essentially be traced back to the beginning of basketball time, but for the sake of keeping it in the color TV era let’s just go back to 1991 when Magic Johnson’s career was cut short after he was diagnosed with HIV.
Jeanie Buss was as close to Johnson as anybody. She considered him another brother. But she also knew what he had meant for the Lakers, and what it meant for the Lakers to lose him.
When I recently spoke to Buss for a story on Johnson, she really emphasized how important it is that the Lakers not only have stars, but that the franchise takes care of them.
“I made my prayers at night and said, ‘If you ever send us another player like Magic Johnson,’” she said, “I will never take that player for granted again, and what that means to our city.”
That next player was Kobe Bryant. With him soon came a young agent named Rob Pelinka.
But for as important as Bryant was to the Lakers, sources inside the organization have long said that not even the legendary Black Mamba wielded as much power within the organization as James now has.
Bryant was never able to strong-arm the Lakers to make a move like the one James helped orchestrate for Westbrook, which has proven to be an outright disaster.
The Lakers did trade Shaquille O’Neal to placate Kobe before he hit free agency in 2004, but when he was under contract like James is now they did not always give in to his demands.
They didn’t give in to his trade demand in 2007. They brought back Phil Jackson even though his relationship with Bryant was strained. They avoided making a panicked move to marginally improve a lackluster roster and instead waited for Pau Gasol to become available.
The Lakers rewarded Bryant’s trust and as a result, they earned his loyalty. When he was still rehabbing from a devastating Achilles injury in 2013, the Lakers heaped upon Bryant a two-year, $49.5 million extension that essentially amounted to a lifetime achievement bonus. Bryant was so fervently embraced by the organization that when they overhauled the front office it was his agent Pelinka who was tabbed to be the new GM.
That is the way Pelinka was schooled in the Lakers way of doing business.
But now that he is on the other side of the table, Pelinka might be discovering that James and Paul work from a different playbook.
The relationship between LeBron and the Lakers now feels far more transactional than it ever did before.
This is a franchise that has long prided itself on keeping its stars happy. Now, the biggest of them all is, quite apparently, rather unhappy.
Here is the only question left to ask: In 2022, where is the line of what the Lakers are willing to do for a star?
(Photo: Harry How/Getty Images)
By Bill Oram Feb 23, 2022
LeBron James and the Lakers are heading for a divorce.
Or, like with so many other relationships that have teetered on the brink of a break-up, they will find a way to reconcile.
Whichever way this goes, the events of the past week have proven something that has often been overlooked in the first four years of LeBron’s Lakers tenure: The gift of his presence is not without an expiration date.
This was always made abundantly clear to his past employers. When he signed a four-year contract with the Lakers in 2018, James bucked his tradition of signing one-year deals in Cleveland, repeatedly leveraging his own looming free agency to keep the pressure on Cavaliers brass.
There has never been that kind of urgency with the Lakers.
Maybe it was the fact that he already owned two mansions in L.A. Or the fact his production company was in the process of becoming a major player in Hollywood. Or that no one knew he would be playing at a league-altering level at age 37.
Whatever the reason, the Lakers appear to have taken for granted that whenever James decided to sail off into the sunset, he would take Sunset Boulevard to get there.
And as a likely result of that, there have been far more wasted years, including this 27-31 season, than there ever were in Cleveland and Miami.
That illusion of permanence has now been shattered, thanks not only to a series of passive-aggressive missives from James that make it clear he was frustrated by the Lakers inaction at the trade deadline, but also, in a conversation with The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd, entertaining the prospect of returning to Cleveland and explicitly stating his final year will be spent playing alongside his son — wherever that may be.
This has to all come as a shock to the Lakers and especially their vice president of basketball operations, Rob Pelinka, who has repeatedly yielded to James and the appropriately-named Klutch Sports Group that represents him.
Why appropriate?
Because James and agent Rich Paul long grabbed hold of the Lakers organization and are now beginning to really squeeze.
The situation is tense enough that one source close to the Lakers likened it to the early days of a war.
So far, the Lakers haven’t shown a particular willingness to engage in battle with their superstar, with sources saying that Pelinka has insisted internally that there are no hard feelings between the two sides.
But even if it is for now a one-sided war, by digging their heels in and not giving James everything that he wants has the potential to be received as a form of aggression — a battle tactic in its own right.
Pelinka erred when he said there was “alignment” between the front office and the Lakers superstars after the team failed to make a trade at the deadline. There quite clearly was not.
It remains murky, however, what exactly Pelinka was supposed to do at the deadline, and to what end.
If the Lakers traded their one available first rounder, a 2027 pick, and it didn’t make them a contender — which by now feels completely out of reach — it would have only limited their ability to improve the team in the offseason.
It’s obvious that James wanted him to do something. But Pelinka no doubt remembered that the last time he yielded to James’ management instincts, he got saddled with Russell Westbrook.
It is notable that maybe for the first time in James’ tenure, he did not get what he wanted out of Pelinka.
And now there is a divide between two of the key pillars in the unorthodox power structure of the Lakers that includes Jeanie Buss, Pelinka, James and Klutch, and much of the Rambis family tree.
As is true for the dynamic between any NBA star and his team, what’s best for James is not always what’s best for the Lakers. Pelinka shoulders at least some responsibility for the long-term health of the organization
That is of course not of as much interest to James as he chases a fifth title and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring record.
And it only makes sense that he would focus his frustration on Pelinka’s inactivity at the trade deadline, because if he were to peel back any additional layers of the team’s roster, he would see his fingerprints all over it, too.
It’s impossible to know where all of this leads. James has the leverage to force a trade out of Los Angeles this summer, if that’s something he is interested in. He clearly has no great loyalty to Pelinka, the man who pushed the Lakers chips in to acquire James’ chosen co-star, Anthony Davis.
Why should he, considering the roster construction in each of James’ other three seasons in L.A?
And if James is done with Pelinka but not ready to be done with L.A. then doesn’t Jeanie Buss have to at least consider making a change at the top of her family’s business?
If James feels like the Lakers are not doing everything to maximize his golden years and he sees that as them pushing him away then, well, he might as well already be gone.
That heat you’re feeling is coming from the flamethrower James is pointing at Pelinka.
There is a certain irony that it is Pelinka who is now being pushed around by a Lakers superstar and his powerful agent. For nearly two decades, Pelinka was that agent, pressuring the Lakers in his own way on behalf of Kobe Bryant.
The Lakers are a superstar-driven franchise, a fact Pelinka embodies perhaps to a fault.
The philosophy can essentially be traced back to the beginning of basketball time, but for the sake of keeping it in the color TV era let’s just go back to 1991 when Magic Johnson’s career was cut short after he was diagnosed with HIV.
Jeanie Buss was as close to Johnson as anybody. She considered him another brother. But she also knew what he had meant for the Lakers, and what it meant for the Lakers to lose him.
When I recently spoke to Buss for a story on Johnson, she really emphasized how important it is that the Lakers not only have stars, but that the franchise takes care of them.
“I made my prayers at night and said, ‘If you ever send us another player like Magic Johnson,’” she said, “I will never take that player for granted again, and what that means to our city.”
That next player was Kobe Bryant. With him soon came a young agent named Rob Pelinka.
But for as important as Bryant was to the Lakers, sources inside the organization have long said that not even the legendary Black Mamba wielded as much power within the organization as James now has.
Bryant was never able to strong-arm the Lakers to make a move like the one James helped orchestrate for Westbrook, which has proven to be an outright disaster.
The Lakers did trade Shaquille O’Neal to placate Kobe before he hit free agency in 2004, but when he was under contract like James is now they did not always give in to his demands.
They didn’t give in to his trade demand in 2007. They brought back Phil Jackson even though his relationship with Bryant was strained. They avoided making a panicked move to marginally improve a lackluster roster and instead waited for Pau Gasol to become available.
The Lakers rewarded Bryant’s trust and as a result, they earned his loyalty. When he was still rehabbing from a devastating Achilles injury in 2013, the Lakers heaped upon Bryant a two-year, $49.5 million extension that essentially amounted to a lifetime achievement bonus. Bryant was so fervently embraced by the organization that when they overhauled the front office it was his agent Pelinka who was tabbed to be the new GM.
That is the way Pelinka was schooled in the Lakers way of doing business.
But now that he is on the other side of the table, Pelinka might be discovering that James and Paul work from a different playbook.
The relationship between LeBron and the Lakers now feels far more transactional than it ever did before.
This is a franchise that has long prided itself on keeping its stars happy. Now, the biggest of them all is, quite apparently, rather unhappy.
Here is the only question left to ask: In 2022, where is the line of what the Lakers are willing to do for a star?
(Photo: Harry How/Getty Images)
They gave me 10 dollars a year. I signed backup so fast
‘The most toxic environment I’ve ever been a part of’: Inside Urban Meyer’s disastrous year with Jaguars
Jayson Jenks and Mike Sando Mar 21, 2022
606
Urban Meyer burst into a room full of players at the Jaguars’ facility. He was furious.
One of his players had missed an assignment during a preseason game, leading to a busted play. Meyer was enraged when it happened. A day later, he was still fuming. If the mistake ever happened again, Meyer warned, he would cut every single one of them.
“And do you know what would happen if I cut you guys?” Meyer said, according to four people in the room. “You couldn’t get a job paying more than $15 an hour.”
The implication that his players were capable of little more than playing football left some angry, others offended. “I lost all respect for him after that,” a veteran player in the room said.
Meyer arrived in Jacksonville with a mixed resume. He had won national championships at Florida and Ohio State, but he brought plenty of baggage, ranging from harsh treatment of players and staff to mishandling domestic-abuse allegations levied against one of his longest-tenured assistants, Zach Smith.
Friends and family over the years have labeled Meyer a control freak and perfectionist, and as he climbed the ranks he developed a reputation as a tough, obsessive win-at-all-costs coach who, by his own admission, was “addicted” to victory. But according to coaches, players and staff in Jacksonville, Meyer crossed the line from tough and demanding to belittling, demeaning and leading by fear.
“The most toxic environment I’ve ever been a part of,” a veteran member of the football operations staff said. “By far. Not even close.”
Receiver D.J. Chark, who signed with the Lions last week after spending the first four years of his career with the Jaguars, said Meyer routinely threatened to fire coaches and cut players. “He feels like threats are what motivates,” Chark said. “I know he would come up to us and tell us if the receivers weren’t doing good, he wasn’t going to fire us, he was going to fire our coach. He would usually say that when the coach was around.”
Kicker Josh Lambo said last year Meyer kicked him during warmups — a fact Meyer’s lawyers reportedly conceded to Rick Stroud, the reporter who broke the story for the Tampa Bay Times. Lambo believed Meyer’s kick was an act of “intimidation,” a theme echoed by several people in the organization. One player described the year with Meyer as “mentally exhausting.”
The Jaguars replaced Meyer with former Super Bowl-winning head coach Doug Pederson in early February, but some who experienced Meyer’s brand of leadership want a fuller public accounting of his tenure. Meyer’s attorney said his client would not comment for this story.
Signs of dysfunction were apparent early on. Several sources said Meyer stepped into the job as if he had all the answers, even though he had never coached in the NFL.
Meyer said he conducted a six-month deep dive on the NFL that included interviews with his former Florida and Ohio State players as well as a study of the salary cap. But multiple sources said Meyer was unfamiliar with star players around the league, including 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel, Seahawks safety Jamal Adams and Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, a three-time NFL defensive player of the year.
“Who’s this 99 guy on the Rams?” Meyer asked one staffer during the season, according to a source. “I’m hearing he might be a problem for us.”
In his first staff meeting, Meyer criticized the way NFL teams operate, noting specifically that coaches failed to take proper care of players’ health. And then, according to multiple sources in the meeting, Meyer said: “I hate scouts. Scouts are lazy.” It was an especially jarring comment given that scouts were also in the room.
Chark said the year began with optimism; Jacksonville’s players turned out in high numbers for voluntary workouts, eager for the new season under Meyer. “But the way he was running the ship, it was impossible to succeed,” Chark said.
In training camp, Meyer pushed for live contact drills despite objections from veteran coaches. One of those drills fell on what Meyer called “Winner and Loser” days; two players would compete, and the winner would be announced over the loudspeaker. After one blocking drill, Meyer insisted Chark do extra reps; the receiver suffered a broken finger, underwent surgery and missed the preseason.
Meyer also forbade players from speaking with opponents on the field before games, once claimed the Jaguars lost because they dressed sloppily and told offensive players he wanted them to dunk the ball over the goalpost after touchdowns even though doing so would draw a fine from the league. But more than Meyer’s coaching quirks, the way he treated people particularly troubled some in the organization.
Not long after veteran receiver John Brown signed with the Jaguars as a free agent, he ran the wrong route in practice. To correct the mistake, Brown, who is from Florida, and rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence ran through the route again after practice. Meyer walked up to the pair.
“Hey, Trevor, you’ve got to slow it down for him,” Meyer said, according to sources. “These boys from the South, their transcripts ain’t right.”
Another time, during a meeting that also included members of the coaching and personnel staffs, Meyer berated a player so harshly that the player cried. According to two sources, Meyer slammed the door after departing the meeting, leaving others to console the player. The next day, one of the other staff members present confronted Meyer about the incident in what one source described as a tense exchange.
Sources said Meyer repeatedly belittled his staff to its members’ faces. He told his assistants he was a winner and they were losers, then demanded they defend their resumes. One player said it was coaches often looked “drained” whenever they left staff meetings with Meyer.
“The players got it bad when it came to him talking to us,” a veteran player said, “but I believe the coaches got it worse.”
“You’ve got players in fear that they’re going to lose their jobs,” Chark said. “You’ve got coaches who he belittled in front of us, and I can only imagine what he was doing behind closed doors. I’m surprised he lasted that long, to be honest with you.”
The most notorious incident of Meyer’s tenure came in late September when Jacksonville played a Thursday night game in Cincinnati. The Jaguars lost to the Bengals, 24-21, their fourth straight defeat. After the season opener, Meyer had confidently told his team he had never lost two in a row. But after the Cincinnati loss, one source said Meyer looked “shellshocked” in the locker room. He told players he had nothing to say.
Neither coaches nor players, however, realized that Meyer didn’t board the team flight that night. It wasn’t until a video emerged over the weekend showing Meyer dancing with a young woman in his Ohio steakhouse that players and coaches learned he had stayed behind. Multiple sources said Meyer went from position group to position group telling players that the woman in the video tried to lure him onto the dance floor despite Meyer’s refusal. But according to two sources, soon after he left one position group, a second, more provocative video became public, throwing everything Meyer said in doubt.
In late November, Meyer told reporters that receivers were running the wrong routes. As NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported, the comment so enraged veteran receiver Marvin Jones that Jones left the team facility. He eventually confronted Meyer at practice but was diplomatic when he spoke to reporters about the incident.
“I’ll just say this: There was something that was brought to my attention that I didn’t like too well,” Jones said.
Once again, Meyer met with players and denied he made the comment about the receivers, even though, according to a source, a player in the room had video of Meyer’s press conference pulled up on his phone.
Meyer’s grip on the team continued to slip. In a December game against the Rams, second-year running back James Robinson fumbled on the opening possession, the second straight week in which he had fumbled.
“Get him out,” Meyer told his coaches during the game, according to two sources. “He’s done. Put Carlos Hyde in. He’s not playing anymore.”
Robinson did not touch the ball again for 26 plays but late in the game was put back in for three carries in garbage time despite the Jaguars trailing by 30 points.
“I’m not sure what the point of that was,” Robinson, who was dealing with injuries in the week leading up to the game, said later.
The decision also confused Lawrence, the 2021 No. 1 pick, who said he discussed the situation with Meyer and the coaching staff. “Bottom line is James is one of our best players, and he’s got to be on the field and we addressed it,” Lawrence said.
Behind the scenes, the Robinson situation was even more divisive. After the game, Meyer told reporters he wasn’t aware of Robinson’s extended absence and put the benching on Robinson’s position coach, Bernie Parmalee.
“You’d have to ask Bernie,” Meyer said. “I don’t get too involved. I don’t micromanage that.”
In a staff meeting the next morning, according to multiple sources, Meyer denied ever telling his coaches to bench Robinson. He said his assistants had misinterpreted him.
“I feel like he put us in very bad positions and, when the questions came, he deferred the responsibility, which made it look like we were just out there being the worst team in the league,” Chark said. “But we weren’t put in position (to succeed).”
Chark and others agreed that Meyer hampered players, most notably Lawrence. “Trevor is a great quarterback,” Chark said. “He was not put in good positions.
“He told us from day one that he was going to maximize our value,” Chark added. “And I truly can’t tell you one player that maximized their value on the Jags this year.”
Meyer was fired for cause on Dec. 15, shortly after Lambo, the Jaguars kicker, accused Meyer of kicking him during warmups and saying, “Hey dipshyt, make your fukking kicks.” Meyer admitted in an interview with Dan Dakich that he made contact with Lambo but denied kicking him.
Meyer, who still had four years left on his contract, seemed to blame his behavior on losing. It “eats away at your soul,” he told Dakich and said he “went through that whole depression thing to where I’d stare at the ceilings.”
On the day Meyer was fired, a veteran player on the Jaguars said the mood around the team was strange. Instead of the disappointment or concern that often accompanies a coach losing his job, the player sensed something else: relief.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photo: Brian Rothmuller / Getty Images)
Jayson Jenks and Mike Sando Mar 21, 2022
Urban Meyer burst into a room full of players at the Jaguars’ facility. He was furious.
One of his players had missed an assignment during a preseason game, leading to a busted play. Meyer was enraged when it happened. A day later, he was still fuming. If the mistake ever happened again, Meyer warned, he would cut every single one of them.
“And do you know what would happen if I cut you guys?” Meyer said, according to four people in the room. “You couldn’t get a job paying more than $15 an hour.”
The implication that his players were capable of little more than playing football left some angry, others offended. “I lost all respect for him after that,” a veteran player in the room said.
Meyer arrived in Jacksonville with a mixed resume. He had won national championships at Florida and Ohio State, but he brought plenty of baggage, ranging from harsh treatment of players and staff to mishandling domestic-abuse allegations levied against one of his longest-tenured assistants, Zach Smith.
Friends and family over the years have labeled Meyer a control freak and perfectionist, and as he climbed the ranks he developed a reputation as a tough, obsessive win-at-all-costs coach who, by his own admission, was “addicted” to victory. But according to coaches, players and staff in Jacksonville, Meyer crossed the line from tough and demanding to belittling, demeaning and leading by fear.
“The most toxic environment I’ve ever been a part of,” a veteran member of the football operations staff said. “By far. Not even close.”
Receiver D.J. Chark, who signed with the Lions last week after spending the first four years of his career with the Jaguars, said Meyer routinely threatened to fire coaches and cut players. “He feels like threats are what motivates,” Chark said. “I know he would come up to us and tell us if the receivers weren’t doing good, he wasn’t going to fire us, he was going to fire our coach. He would usually say that when the coach was around.”
Kicker Josh Lambo said last year Meyer kicked him during warmups — a fact Meyer’s lawyers reportedly conceded to Rick Stroud, the reporter who broke the story for the Tampa Bay Times. Lambo believed Meyer’s kick was an act of “intimidation,” a theme echoed by several people in the organization. One player described the year with Meyer as “mentally exhausting.”
The Jaguars replaced Meyer with former Super Bowl-winning head coach Doug Pederson in early February, but some who experienced Meyer’s brand of leadership want a fuller public accounting of his tenure. Meyer’s attorney said his client would not comment for this story.
Signs of dysfunction were apparent early on. Several sources said Meyer stepped into the job as if he had all the answers, even though he had never coached in the NFL.
Meyer said he conducted a six-month deep dive on the NFL that included interviews with his former Florida and Ohio State players as well as a study of the salary cap. But multiple sources said Meyer was unfamiliar with star players around the league, including 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel, Seahawks safety Jamal Adams and Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, a three-time NFL defensive player of the year.
“Who’s this 99 guy on the Rams?” Meyer asked one staffer during the season, according to a source. “I’m hearing he might be a problem for us.”
In his first staff meeting, Meyer criticized the way NFL teams operate, noting specifically that coaches failed to take proper care of players’ health. And then, according to multiple sources in the meeting, Meyer said: “I hate scouts. Scouts are lazy.” It was an especially jarring comment given that scouts were also in the room.
Chark said the year began with optimism; Jacksonville’s players turned out in high numbers for voluntary workouts, eager for the new season under Meyer. “But the way he was running the ship, it was impossible to succeed,” Chark said.
In training camp, Meyer pushed for live contact drills despite objections from veteran coaches. One of those drills fell on what Meyer called “Winner and Loser” days; two players would compete, and the winner would be announced over the loudspeaker. After one blocking drill, Meyer insisted Chark do extra reps; the receiver suffered a broken finger, underwent surgery and missed the preseason.
Meyer also forbade players from speaking with opponents on the field before games, once claimed the Jaguars lost because they dressed sloppily and told offensive players he wanted them to dunk the ball over the goalpost after touchdowns even though doing so would draw a fine from the league. But more than Meyer’s coaching quirks, the way he treated people particularly troubled some in the organization.
Not long after veteran receiver John Brown signed with the Jaguars as a free agent, he ran the wrong route in practice. To correct the mistake, Brown, who is from Florida, and rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence ran through the route again after practice. Meyer walked up to the pair.
“Hey, Trevor, you’ve got to slow it down for him,” Meyer said, according to sources. “These boys from the South, their transcripts ain’t right.”
Another time, during a meeting that also included members of the coaching and personnel staffs, Meyer berated a player so harshly that the player cried. According to two sources, Meyer slammed the door after departing the meeting, leaving others to console the player. The next day, one of the other staff members present confronted Meyer about the incident in what one source described as a tense exchange.
Sources said Meyer repeatedly belittled his staff to its members’ faces. He told his assistants he was a winner and they were losers, then demanded they defend their resumes. One player said it was coaches often looked “drained” whenever they left staff meetings with Meyer.
“The players got it bad when it came to him talking to us,” a veteran player said, “but I believe the coaches got it worse.”
“You’ve got players in fear that they’re going to lose their jobs,” Chark said. “You’ve got coaches who he belittled in front of us, and I can only imagine what he was doing behind closed doors. I’m surprised he lasted that long, to be honest with you.”
The most notorious incident of Meyer’s tenure came in late September when Jacksonville played a Thursday night game in Cincinnati. The Jaguars lost to the Bengals, 24-21, their fourth straight defeat. After the season opener, Meyer had confidently told his team he had never lost two in a row. But after the Cincinnati loss, one source said Meyer looked “shellshocked” in the locker room. He told players he had nothing to say.
Neither coaches nor players, however, realized that Meyer didn’t board the team flight that night. It wasn’t until a video emerged over the weekend showing Meyer dancing with a young woman in his Ohio steakhouse that players and coaches learned he had stayed behind. Multiple sources said Meyer went from position group to position group telling players that the woman in the video tried to lure him onto the dance floor despite Meyer’s refusal. But according to two sources, soon after he left one position group, a second, more provocative video became public, throwing everything Meyer said in doubt.
In late November, Meyer told reporters that receivers were running the wrong routes. As NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported, the comment so enraged veteran receiver Marvin Jones that Jones left the team facility. He eventually confronted Meyer at practice but was diplomatic when he spoke to reporters about the incident.
“I’ll just say this: There was something that was brought to my attention that I didn’t like too well,” Jones said.
Once again, Meyer met with players and denied he made the comment about the receivers, even though, according to a source, a player in the room had video of Meyer’s press conference pulled up on his phone.
Meyer’s grip on the team continued to slip. In a December game against the Rams, second-year running back James Robinson fumbled on the opening possession, the second straight week in which he had fumbled.
“Get him out,” Meyer told his coaches during the game, according to two sources. “He’s done. Put Carlos Hyde in. He’s not playing anymore.”
Robinson did not touch the ball again for 26 plays but late in the game was put back in for three carries in garbage time despite the Jaguars trailing by 30 points.
“I’m not sure what the point of that was,” Robinson, who was dealing with injuries in the week leading up to the game, said later.
The decision also confused Lawrence, the 2021 No. 1 pick, who said he discussed the situation with Meyer and the coaching staff. “Bottom line is James is one of our best players, and he’s got to be on the field and we addressed it,” Lawrence said.
Behind the scenes, the Robinson situation was even more divisive. After the game, Meyer told reporters he wasn’t aware of Robinson’s extended absence and put the benching on Robinson’s position coach, Bernie Parmalee.
“You’d have to ask Bernie,” Meyer said. “I don’t get too involved. I don’t micromanage that.”
In a staff meeting the next morning, according to multiple sources, Meyer denied ever telling his coaches to bench Robinson. He said his assistants had misinterpreted him.
“I feel like he put us in very bad positions and, when the questions came, he deferred the responsibility, which made it look like we were just out there being the worst team in the league,” Chark said. “But we weren’t put in position (to succeed).”
Chark and others agreed that Meyer hampered players, most notably Lawrence. “Trevor is a great quarterback,” Chark said. “He was not put in good positions.
“He told us from day one that he was going to maximize our value,” Chark added. “And I truly can’t tell you one player that maximized their value on the Jags this year.”
Meyer was fired for cause on Dec. 15, shortly after Lambo, the Jaguars kicker, accused Meyer of kicking him during warmups and saying, “Hey dipshyt, make your fukking kicks.” Meyer admitted in an interview with Dan Dakich that he made contact with Lambo but denied kicking him.
Meyer, who still had four years left on his contract, seemed to blame his behavior on losing. It “eats away at your soul,” he told Dakich and said he “went through that whole depression thing to where I’d stare at the ceilings.”
On the day Meyer was fired, a veteran player on the Jaguars said the mood around the team was strange. Instead of the disappointment or concern that often accompanies a coach losing his job, the player sensed something else: relief.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photo: Brian Rothmuller / Getty Images)
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