Dante Fowler Jr. seems like best candidate for franchise tag with Rams in 2019

If the Los Angeles Rams end up using the franchise tag on any member of the team, Dante Fowler Jr. seems like the best candidate.

Leading up to the trade deadline this past season, the Los Angeles Rams felt confident enough in acquiring Dante Fowler Jr. turning out to be a steal down the road since he was a former first-round pick back in 2015 for a reason.

Turns out, a fresh start on a new team like the Rams was just what Fowler needed to get his career back on the right track after watching how things were playing out with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The fact that Fowler only had two sacks with nine combined tackles through seven games with the Jaguars in 2018 shows what kind of season it had been for the Florida product, but at least joining the Rams seemed to work out for the best.

In the eight games played with the Rams during the regular season, Fowler ended up earning six starts while managing to record two sacks, and 21 combined tackles to show just how valuable of a member he could be on defense.

Not to mention, Fowler came up big leading up to the Super Bowl by recording 1.5 sacks for Los Angeles, making a strong case for a new deal this offseason.

With that being said, Fowler is one of a few current players Los Angeles will evaluate over the next couple of weeks when it comes to determining which individuals would be worth keeping around for the 2019 season.

Based off his production alone since coming on board in the middle of the regular season, the Rams have plenty of reasons to be interested in seeing what Fowler would be able to accomplish during a full year of action since he was playing catch up at times.

Of course, the money factor always comes into play this time of year since as much as Los Angeles would love to give it another go with Fowler, they also want to make sure it would come at the right place.

Also, if the Rams were to end up leaning in the direction of using the franchise tag on one of their current players, Fowler would seem like the best candidate, although this doesn’t necessarily mean it would be the best decision.

At the end of the day, Los Angeles would need to decide if it would be worth to pay Fowler the hefty $15.8 million price for the franchise tag, or if they would be better off trying to work out another potential deal, preferably a short-term one as an opportunity to prove himself.

Tuesday marked the first day in which teams were allowed to begin placing the franchise tag on designated players, and since they have a few more weeks to make the decision before the deadline to do so, expect the Rams to take their time in deciding on Fowler.