NFL Rumors: LA Rams RB Todd Gurley return in question

NFL Rumors suggest LA Rams RB Todd Gurley‘s return for the 2020 NFL season is a huge question mark for the team this off-season

NFL Rumors involving the LA Rams continue to surface. Rumors typically waste no time circling at the end of a disappointing NFL season. While the Rams finished the 2019 season with a respectable 9-7 record, the team did not reach the NFL Playoffs.  That was a significant disappointment for Rams General Manger Les Snead and Head Coach Sean McVay.

While there were many reasons for the team to miss the playoffs, many look at the inability of Rams running back Todd Gurley to rush for over 1,000 yards in 2019 as one major component.  Gurley will be entering his sixth NFL season, and has been a premier offensive weapon for the Rams over that time frame.

2019 was different in two respects.  For the first time since 2016, Gurley failed to rush for over a thousand yards. Complicating matters further, 2019 was the worst season for Gurley as a receiver since entering the NFL in 2015.  Gurley accounted for 14 touchdowns for the Rams in 2019, his fewest amount since 2016, when he put up six touchdowns.

That is still plenty of scoring from the running back position.  But Gurley is not paid like an average running back. His current contract elevates Gurley among the NFL elite.  Gurley had the opportunity to prove worthy of the team’s unshaken confidence in his ability in the 2019 season.

Instead, his 2019 added even more questions to his health, and NFL future.

Gurley’s 2018 playoff disappearing act

All of that would be okay, under normal circumstances. But questions about Gurley’s durability are widespread now, and the downturn in Gurley’s production only increased the volume to those questions. Those questions come with a significant price tag.  Gurley is set for another installment to his roster bonus at the third day of the new football season. In 2020, that date is March 21, 2020.  On that date, Gurley will earn an additional $7,550,000.  Beyond that, his $12,550,000 roster bonus becomes fully guaranteed (all salary cap numbers used here per overthecap.com)

That seems like an expensive bill to pay for the number of questions hanging over Gurley’s durability and overall health. His cap number for the 2020 season figures in at $17.25 million, or 8.6 percent of the total Rams salary cap allocation directed to one under-performing running back.

Gurley had ACL surgery on his left knee as a running back for the University of Georgia. It was that left knee which fell under the national spotlight. While he had great seasons in 2017 and 2018, his knee became the focus of national media late into 2018, when he missed the final two games and played nearly a cameo role throughout the playoffs. In Super Bowl 53, when the Rams needed him most, he rushed just 10 times for 35 yards.  Conversely, it was the legs of veteran running back CJ Anderson who stormed the LA Rams through the 2018 NFL playoffs.

How healthy is Gurley?

That limited usage set reporters seeking a cause.  Eventually, a narrative began to develop, a narrative suggesting that Gurley’s knees were more injured than originally feared.

The news shocked LA Rams fans. In fact, the news shocked NFL fans everywhere.  Arthritis is something sports fans and reporters were hearing for the first time. Fans asked why wasn’t this reported via NFL injury reports.  Others questioned the Rams transparency about Gurley’s status. Still others outright rejected the report as fiction.  After all, arthritis was new and scary.  While it did offer a completely logical explanation for why Anderson,and not Gurley, starred for the Rams in the NFL playoffs.

The ramifications of arthritis afflicting a young star running back like Todd Gurley seemed far too harsh to accept without pushback. That narrative, regardless of the reputation of anyone first reporting upon the notion, needed to be confirmed by team sources.

Arthritis confirmed

That narrative was indeed confirmed by the Rams when sports trainer Travelle Gaines discussed Gurley’s knee with CBS reporter Dave Richard:

"“Everybody knew when Todd came out of Georgia that there would be some kind of arthritic component to his knee, which is part of every surgery whether it’s a shoulder, a knee, an ankle,” Gaines said late last week. “He’s now at the year-five mark, all we’re doing is managing that. If we can pound him less in the offseason while keeping his weight down, working on his strength, working on his agility in short areas, that’s going to give him a better chance to be healthy Weeks 14 through 17 when they really count.”"

The plan to keep Gurley fresh for weeks 14 through 17 did not pan out.  The Rams last four opponents in 2019 were the Seattle Seahawks, Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers, and Arizona Cardinals.  Gurley ran a collective 69 carries for 207 yards and 4 touchdowns. That averages 17 carries and 52 yards with 1 touchdown per game.

Arthiritis is not a casual ailment to an NFL running back. It extends recovery times for subsequent injuries, limits the ceiling for recovery, and start a clock ticking on how long a player can successfully compete at the NFL level.  That clock has been ticking down for Gurley now for several years.

Rams 2019 Plan B

While the Rams avoided discussing Gurley’s future publicly, the 2019 NFL Draft resulted in the LA Rams selecting a solid running back in the third round by the name of Darrell Henderson. The Rams did not have a first round pick, and used the second round pick to select safety Taylor Rapp from the University of Washington.

Running back Darrell Henderson was selected from the University of Memphis. He averaged 8.2 yards per carry over his three seasons at Memphis. The 5-foot-8 208 pound rookie recorded only spot usage this past season.  He recorded eight games where he played on offense, and two games where he played as the team’s kick returner.   He was ultimately placed on the injured reserve list on December 23, 2019.

2015 UDFA running back Malcolm Brown had a larger share of the offense, but not by much. The 5-foot-11 222 pound five-year veteran from the University of Texas rushed for 69 carries, 255 yards, and five touchdowns in 14 games in 2019.  In hindsight, the Rams did not expand the role of either Henderson nor of Brown to offset fewer carries by Gurley.

The offense did reduce the workload upon Gurley in 2019.  But the Rams did not distribute those carries to other ball carriers. Instead, the offense simply eliminated approximately 70 rushing plays for the season, and instead forced Goff to pass that number of plays.

Rams 2020 options

At the moment, the LA Rams are between a rock and a hard place. They have made a significant financial commitment to Gurley, and now have no way to eliminate the impact of that contract to reflect Gurley’s uncertainty of health going forward.  The team has several options:

Option I – Do nothing

The Rams could simply “push” on the Gurley contract, close their eyes, and hope for the best.  While his production and workload have decreased, he can still prove to be an offensive threat as long as the team works closely with him.  But even with a much lighter workload, we’ve witnessed Gurley’s durability was a factor in a non-playoff season.  That translates into not having Gurley available for the team in post season play, hardly an enviable position for the team paying the man nearly 9 percent of their total salary cap.

Option II – Trade Gurley

Of course, the trade block is always an option. But what would the Rams get in return for a running back with arthritis confirmed in his knee in the NFL? At his cost, getting even a seventh round pick back would likely be a win. Gurley’s salary price might require the team to trade Gurley AND a pick, and that is not a good option for the Rams who need each and every NFL Draft pick in 2020 the team can scavenge.   If the Rams are able to trade Gurley, they save $4.65 million from the 2020 salary cap.  Is that worth the cost of a pick?

Rams Salary status make Gurley cap casualty?

In a perfect team friendly contract world, Gurley is not worth the contract he now holds. That would most certainly mean the Rams would cut Gurley outright, and offer to sign him back to a more reasonably priced contract. But Gurley’s agent was far too savvy for that. By commiting the Rams to guaranteed dollars, he essentially  linked the Rams to an underperforming Gurley for years.  Severing the contract now has severe financial penalties for the Rams in terms of the 2020 salary cap.  The Rams went all-in, but didn’t have the right cards.  Now, they have limits as to what the team can do.

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Option III – Release Gurley

While this may seem simple enough, it’s incredibly costly.  But outright cutting Gurley, all that guaranteed money flows through against the 2020 cap, essentially bankrupting the team here and now.  That means the Rams will have no dollars whatsoever to use in free agency, will be forced to restructure existing player contracts, and will struggle to find enough money to pay their draft selcections.  Restructuring other contracts will relieve the Rams salary cap chokehold, but this is a horrific option for the team trying to get back to the top of the competitive NFC West.

Option IV – Restructure Gurley’s contract

The most likely option purely from financial impact appears to get Gurley’s ultra-expensive contract renegotiated.  If the team can renegotiate the contract quickly enough, they can save over $9.1 million this season.   Restructure does not eliminate dollars from the contract. It simply converts bonuses to salary, or salary to bonus dollars.  By converting categories of how the player is paid, the team can level load the contract to reduce the uneven salary cap hits of guaranteed dollars.

Of course, once restructured, the team might create a more receptive trade market and trade Gurley away.

NFL Rumors persist

IN the face of this, the NFL Rumors persist over the LA Rams parting ways with RB Todd Gurley this offseason. NFL.com’s Michael Silva continued to propogate the rumor of Gurley becoming a salary cap casualty in his December 22, 2019 article about the future of the LA Rams. While the financial aspects of outright cutting the running back do not seem to support the notion, it does not eliminate the possibility.

Profootball talk NBC sports analyst Mike Florio brought the NFL rumor to the forefront once more when he cited Gurley’s contract terms in a June 2019 article.  In that article, he suggested that if Rams rookie Henderson had a solid season, the Rams would move away from Gurley this off-season.  Of course, Henderson did not put up much in 2019. But are the Rams ready to move on regardless?  After all, the 2019 season hit head coach Sean McVay hard. And the Rams practically babied Gurley all off-season last year, vowing that the team “won’t use Gurley at all in the off-season.”.

In the 2019 season aftermath, the Rams may simply conclude that there is not enough bubble-wrap in the universe to keep Gurley fresh through an entire NFL season.  And he is paid far to much for spot duty, or a casual role.

When Rams General Manager Les Snead was approached about Gurley at the end of 2019, he admitted that Gurley was not the same running back in 2019.  What he did not address is what the Rams plan to do about it. Snead did indicate that the Rams definitely intend to do better in the running game in 2020.   Even still, Snead defended Gurley’s lofty contract, all the while conceding that it fails the sniff test when analyzed using NFL data analytics.  And that perhaps is the point damning bit of evidence of the Rams intentions to part ways with Gurley this season. You see, Les Snead is a strong advocate of using data analytics in virtually all personnel decisions.