Door appears to be closed on Ndamukong Suh returning to Rams

The Los Angeles Rams previously signed Ndamukong Suh to a one-year deal last offseason to put them in better position to win the Super Bowl.

Entering the offseason, one of the biggest questions surrounding the Los Angeles Rams was whether the team would be able to bring Ndamukong Suh back for a second season after spending 2018 with the team.

Around this time last year, Suh was considered a long shot to sign by the Rams, mainly because the veteran defender’s asking price seemed like it was going to be too high following his release from the Miami Dolphins.

As fans know, Suh would end up agreeing to a one-year deal with Los Angeles worth $14 million, making the defensive line seem like an absolute nightmare since he would now be teaming up with Aaron Donald.

While the frustrations were there at times such as the unit’s inability to stop the run, Suh did step up in a big way during the playoffs, and Donald setting a career high of 20.5 sacks made it seem like the move was well worth it from an overall perspective.

With all of this in mind, Suh seemed like a strong candidate to return to the Rams for a second season in 2019 to help put the team in better position to make another run at the Super Bowl, with hopefully better results than last February.

Unfortunately, free agency has officially been underway, and with the start of April only a few days away, it seemed unlikely that Los Angeles was going to bring Suh back for another year since financially, the defender was going to be out of their budget.

After hearing Les Snead basically close the door on this possibility during the NFL owners meeting on Tuesday by discussing how difficult it would be to bring Suh back while dealing with a tight salary cap situation, it now seems appropriate for Rams fans to officially move on.

Does this mean Los Angeles will take a step back on defense without Suh in 2019? Not necessarily, since there are plenty of strong candidates that seem willing to step up in Suh’s absence along with the Rams hoping to find potential replacements during next month’s NFL Draft.

Realizing Suh will most likely end up elsewhere may seem like a tough pill to swallow for the Rams and their fans when seeing how close they were to winning Super Bowl 53, but also this isn’t the end of the world since Los Angeles was already a strong contender without him in the picture.