Really? LA Rams Michael Brockers only nets 2023 7th-round pick

Is this a second fleecing of the LA Rams?

Did Detroit GM Brad Holmes just pull one over on the Rams, fleece his ex-employers out of a good veteran player in exchange for a ketchup packet in two years? Couldn’t they have gotten a ketchup packet for this year, at least? But two years down the road? Really?

No other NFL GM is as intimately familiar with the Rams roster,  financial picture  (and salary cap woes) than Holmes.  And by all accounts,  he has not hesitated to use that insider’s perspective to take full advantage of an LA Rams organization caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. He knew, just as other front offices around the league knew, that the Rams were up hard against the salary cap, and were likely hoping (or simply biding their time) until the team cut Brockers so they could nab him for peanuts.

A 2023 seventh-rounder may not be peanuts, but you can see it from there. It’s more than just low, it’s embarrassingly low. It’s almost not worth the effort to draw up the papers to the league. If this were the NBA, the Rams would be talking about the rights to an international player who has no intention of ever stepping foot in the USA.  One seventh-round draft pick in two years and three drafts into the future is symbolic. It’s the equivalent of a one-cent copper.

Now let’s not be accused of throwing any shade at the Detroit Lions or Brad Holmes. They are perfectly within their rights to assess the desperation of the LA Rams, the peril that the Rams organization faced if they are unable to execute a timely trade, and do everything possible to leverage that knowledge to emerge with the best deal for their half of the exchange. But let’s be real, Lions’ GM Brad Holmes resembles a Justice League superhero in the dealings with the Rams so far.