Rams’ Les Snead explains how Sammy Watkins was first pursued back in May

As soon as the Buffalo Bills declined the fifth-year option on Sammy Watkins, Les Snead started pursuing the wideout for the Los Angeles Rams.

Despite an upcoming preseason matchup against the Oakland Raiders, the recent acquisition of Sammy Watkins from the Buffalo Bills is still the most popular topic at the moment when it comes to the Los Angeles Rams. For a team that entered the offseason in desperate need of help at the wide receiver position, the Rams were already in decent shape with the additions of Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp, but the addition of Watkins should take this offense to a whole new level.

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What made this whole situation even more exciting for Los Angeles fans is how it kind of came out of nowhere since there was no mention of the team even being interested in Watkins as another option at wideout. For an individual who has received heavy criticism at times, give Les Snead credit for pulling a move like this off, especially when finding out it apparently had been in the works all the way back at the beginning of May.

The Rams general manager recently conducted an interview with ProFootballTalk.com about the trade, and according to Snead, the interest in Watkins started back when the Bills decided not to pickup the receiver’s fifth-year option. Take a look at what Snead had to say, courtesy of Mike Florio:

"“I think he landed on the radar screen when the Bills’ organization didn’t put the fifth-year option on him back in the spring,” Snead said. “At that point you can sense, OK, maybe they’re not satisfied. Maybe there’s a question mark or two because they didn’t do the fifth-year option. So to be honest with you, I probably made the first call within that week. From there it probably was a summer’s worth of calls to try to get this thing done. It was finally consummated on Friday.”"

As previously mentioned, Snead certainly deserves credit for never giving up on landing the wideout, as this move will hopefully help bring out the best in Jared Goff since the quarterback now has a reliable deep threat to work with. Staying healthy has been an issue at times over the years, but Watkins claims he’s 100 percent ready to go, and there’s no reason for Los Angeles or their fans to be worried.

Next: NFL Power Rankings: Rams preseason Week 2 edition

Don’t look now, but the offense that ranked at the bottom of the league in 2016 by only averaging 14 points per game is all of a sudden loaded with a ton of talent at the wide receiver position. And even if he’s held to limited action against the Raiders, it will still be fun to watch Watkins suiting up for the Rams during the second preseason game.