Los Angeles Rams acquiring Dante Fowler Jr. in trade before deadline is huge steal

In what can best be described as a steal, the Los Angeles Rams acquired Dante Fowler Jr. from the Jacksonville Jaguars before Tuesday’s trade deadline.

Despite being 8-0 and the only undefeated team remaining in the NFL after eight weeks, all eyes were on the Los Angeles Rams before Tuesday’s trade deadline to see if the team would make any big moves.

Turns out, the Rams are still in their Super Bowl or bust mindset from the offseason when it comes to pulling off key trades to put them in the best position possible to earn a trip to Atlanta in the winter after acquiring Dante Fowler Jr. from the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Over the last couple of weeks, Fowler’s name has popped up in numerous trade scenarios since the former first-round pick wasn’t exactly living up to expectations for the Jaguars in 2018.

Then again, when looking at how Jacksonville as a team hasn’t really been living up to the hype this year after recently losing for the fifth time in six games, so maybe moving on from Fowler was the best move in general.

During the 2015 NFL Draft, Jacksonville’s expectations for Fowler were high when they decided to use the third overall pick on the former Florida state star, and rightfully so since he was viewed as one of the top defenders from the draft class.

Unfortunately, Fowler’s NFL career got off to the worst start possible when he suffered a torn ACL during the first day of mini-camp, meaning the Jaguars would have to wait until the following year to see what he brought to the table.

Over his first two seasons, all seemed to be going well for Fowler when considering he recorded 12 sacks, and even helped the unit emerge as one of the top defenses in 2017.

This season, however, Fowler’s numbers were far from impressive when considering how he recorded just one sack and eight combined tackles in seven games, making it easy to see why Jacksonville was willing to trade him.

As for the Rams, this seems like an absolute steal when seeing how they only had to give up a third-round pick in 2019 and a fifth-round pick in 2020 just to bring Fowler on board.

Los Angeles was one of those teams that made it clear heading into Tuesday’s deadline they would be interested in bringing another pass rusher on board. And even though Fowler seems like a work in progress, just imagine if the Rams can figure out a way to get him to live up to the first-round talent from a few years ago.

Wade Phillips is one of the top defensive coordinators in the league for a reason, and if Los Angeles didn’t feel confident in his ability to help get the best from Fowler, they never would have made this move.

For a team that was already considered to be loaded with talent on both sides of the football, the Rams found a way to get even better with the addition of Fowler.