Pressure mounts for LA Rams to sign OBJ, but on who?

The LA Rams have not forgotten about WR Odell Beckham Jr., nor has Odell Beckham Jr. forgotten about the LA Rams. It’s been ‘out there,’ like a cloud bank that is slowly descending upon a valley village after a morning spring rain. It’s been out there, everyone can see it, but nobody has been able to get a handle on it.

For the LA Rams part, they’ve clearly made an offer or two, none of which have come close to any numbers that OBJ believes he is worth. And so the stalemate continues

The receiver continues to rehab his surgically repaired knee, and the Rams personnel department has been busy attending to other personnel. Busy? I meant to say frantically. How else do you describe this team coming to terms with 26 players over the course of 72 hours? That is all the time required for the team to trade for one veteran, draft eight rookies, and then sign and commit to 17 undrafted rookie free agents.

And among those 26 new faces? Only one addition is a wide receiver. If the Rams are unsure whether or not they will come to terms with Beckham to return to the team, they are certainly not showing any signs of it. In fact, the team’s moves so far appear to be banking on getting him back on this roster.

And yet, no progress appears to be made either.

And so the business end of this relationship has stalled. But as far as the interest? It’s never waned. In fact, it may be even more urgent now. Here is the Rich Eisen broadcast where he talks to LA Rams head coach Sean McVay (phone-in).  It’s a 17:24 minute video, and it’s power-packed with a huge amount of information and insight.

Odell Beckham Jr. becomes the topic at 14:38 of the video clip.

It certainly sounds like McVay wants Odell Beckham Jr. on the team.

"” Oh, of course. I really want Odell back on our team. He’s a guy that, in a short amount of time, we were able to develop a really special relationship. I thought he brought a great spark to our team. I thought he played really well. He’s a great teammate. We all know what a charisma and a presence that he has . . . Without a doubt, want to get Odell back here. That’s the goal and continuing to work toward a solution of him re-signing with the Rams.” – Per Head Coach Sean McVay during the Rich Eisen broadcast (see above video clip)"

McVay opened up as a chatterbox as soon as Rich Eisen mentioned the acquisition of veteran inside linebacker Bobby Wagner to the Rams’ roster.

McVay then moved on to the topic of quarterback Matthew Stafford. In fact, the entire video is worth a watch.

Okay, so McVay wants OBJ back on the team. OBJ wants to be back on the team. So whose court is the ball in right now? I’ll speculate and guess that it’s on the LA Rams, but not for a lack of trying. You see, the Rams have committed to extensions (market adjustments?) for DL Aaron Donald and WR Cooper Kupp. I suspect that the money necessary to bring OBJ back to the team is currently embedded in the salary cap impacts of those current contracts.

So it’s not a question of if, but rather a question of when?  That sounds about par for the course where the LA Rams are concerned. It’s a series of contract negotiation dominoes that must be executed in the right sequence to ensure that there will be sufficient free cap space for the next contract in the series.

For now, we wait. How long? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, or some other overused cliche for I don’t know.