5 LA Rams offseason moves worse than extending Floyd over JJIII

There are plenty of articles about the LA Rams ripe for reading on the internet right now.  There are those touting the LA Rams’ chances for success in 2021. There are others that reveal uncanny insights into the inner workings of how the Rams coaching staff are learning new things from veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford. It’s the NFL season about to open and entertain us from the waning days of summer all the way to New Year’s Day and beyond.

And I’m here to drink in all of it.

There are the annual preseason articles that tout the usual and customary suspects. Articles that place the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers among the upper echelons of the NFL, despite both coming off losing seasons. The rookie quarterbacks’ odds of winning the NFL MVP award or even Super Bowl LVI.

I’m not drinking any of that kool-aid.

But there are also stories that question the promotion of some players into starting roles, the durability of players for the upcoming 2021 NFL season, the moves made, and the move not made in the choreographed effort to build the best roster possible for the 2021 NFL season. One article written by Randy Gurzi from NFL Spin zone cites the Worst NFL offseason move for each of the 32 teams. In that article, he declares that the worst offseason move for the LA Rams was extending OLB Leonard Floyd while allowing John Johnson III to sign elsewhere.

The justification for that particular off-season gaffe is neither compelling nor very detailed. The argument begins with the same ole cliche hot take about the LA Rams trading away first-round draft picks. it’s like an Ikea article, you buy the kit and then assemble it yourself. It includes trading away first-round picks, overpaying for Brandin Cooks, Todd Gurley, and Jared Goff (or some combination of that group), and then rolls it all into the unrelated point that he was trying to make. In this case, the assertion that the LA Rams overpaid for outside linebacker Leonard Floyd while not paying to keep veteran safety John Johnson III.