Blame this year’s NFL QB carousel on the LA Rams

There is a saying that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. If true, then there are a lot of NFL teams that paid great compliments to the LA Rams. NFL teams simply made reviews of their current quarterback situation and found them to be quite lacking. And so, they made a change. A significant and irrevocable change at the most important position on the team.

And it all started when the LA Rams traded starting quarterback Jared Goff and a hefty sack full of draft picks for Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford. At the time, a trade like that was unprecedented. Now it’s commonplace. The latest in a long line of quarterback trades prior to the 2021 NFL Draft was the trade of New York Jets quarterback Sam Darnold to the Carolina Panthers.

That comes after the Carson Wentz trade from the Philadelphia Eagles to the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers trade up to the third pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.  If you are keeping score, that now makes four teams who have decided that their 2020 starting quarterback is no longer worth keeping for the future of the franchise.

Wow.

Of course, there was pressure building across the NFL on a number of quarterbacks who failed to achieve certain milestones with their teams. Curiously, rather than pause and question the process of evaluating quarterback talent and fit in the NFL, many teams are simply abandoning former quarterbacks who were highly coveted.  So what is really going here?