Rams season will be a referendum on Les Snead and his future in LA

2017 will be critical for Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead, needing a good season from players like Todd Gurley and especially Jared Goff to survive.

Los Angeles Rams General Manager Les Snead was pretty fortunate to find his employment continue when the 2016 NFL season concluded. For fans, the likelihood of him following Jeff Fisher to the unemployment line was only a matter of time.

More from Ramblin' Fan

• Have you heard Les Snead’s latest interview? Are LA Rams playing possum?
• LA Rams should add ‘pass-rush specialist’ in free agency
• LA Rams fan guide: Which ‘RE’ category do you fall into?
• Do LA Rams have golden opportunity to re-hire DB coach Aubrey Pleasant?
• 3 ways Cam Akers will help you forget Rams RB Todd Gurley in 2023

What a difference an offseason makes.

Now having said that, what a difference this season will make for the prospects of Snead continuing his gig in LA.

As Los Angeles winds down after an eventual draft and OTA’s that saw head coach Sean McVay begin to chart a new direction for the Rams, the focus will move to how this team takes shape after a decade of woeful football. As the 2016 season began to disintegrate, conventional wisdom seemed to be that either wholesale changes would occur, or the status quo would remain. When an extension was announced for Fisher before the game in New England, it seemed the latter had come to pass.

What we got in some ways, was a splitting of the baby.

As things now relate to Snead, he is on the hook for what remains from a decade of losing and Fisher himself. The idea that he can completely detach from what has come before is at best unlikely, but a season where the Rams can overachieve might be the one thing that saves his job.

At least for another year.

As I’ve said all offseason, McVay is playing with house money. He has “plausible deniability” should this season be a replay of the last.

Snead does not.

I believed all last season that Fisher and Snead were tied at the hip. If one went, so went the other. But he got lucky in that he could best serve in the capacity of finding a new head coach.

Now, as this offseason has played out, and as McVay has, at least somewhat left the door cracked if not open at the quarterback position, the likely scenario is that the Rams most high profile pick, Jared Goff, can either save, or cost Snead his job.

Snead needs Goff like he needs oxygen, plain and simple.

The Los Angeles Rams will use 2017 to reposition itself for the future. It’s the last reset this organization has, and they need to get it right.

Related Story: Rams Week 5 opponent is familiar and beatable

No one knows that more that Les Snead.

Except maybe Sean McVay.