The Los Angeles Rams didn’t enter the season with expectations to pick in the top 10 of next year’s NFL Draft.
However, a titanic scourge of injuries leaves Sean McVay’s team in a state of flux, one that might not get settled before it’s too late to contend in the NFC.
Los Angeles’ injury list is one of the most star-studded in the NFL, sporting impact starters like wide receivers Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua, guard Jonah Jackson, center Steve Avila, tight end Tyler Higbee, safety John Johnson III, cornerbacks Darious Williams and Derion Kendrick, not to mention a handful of valuable reserves.
Most of those guys will return at some point this season, but getting off to an 0-2 start and staring down a roster filled with holes at key positions is not where a team with Super Bowl aspirations wants to be this early in the season. That’s not even mentioning the galaxy-sized hole Aaron Donald left on the franchise when he retired this past offseason.
McVay is one of the great offensive minds of his generation. It wouldn’t be shocking to see him squeeze lemonade out of this lemon of a situation and get the Rams in position for a Wild Card spot once his team is healthy.
However, what happens if he can’t? What if the Rams’ 2024 season will be more like its 2022 campaign, one marred with uneven play sparked predominantly by injury? Is this the year McVay and general manager Les Snead decide having a first-round pick isn’t such a bad idea to bridge the Stafford era to the future of Rams football?
It’s why the Rams can’t be assumed to suffer any one fate after its disappointing returns on the 2024 season. You cannot automatically count this team out because of who is steadying the ship, but you can’t just tip your cap to McVay’s coaching staff to sand over the rough spots and expect wins in bunches late in the season. This team’s immediate future is hazy as heck.
First, consider the sunny side. After a disastrous 3-6 start to the 2023 season, the Rams won seven of their last eight games after the bye week to clinch the sixth seed in the NFC playoffs. They took the red-hot Detroit Lions to the wire on the road, losing by just a point. That took sincere guts and smarts.
McVay has only ever coached one losing season with Los Angeles, that 2022 campaign where Stafford missed a big chunk of the season and part of the problem may have just been a prolonged Super Bowl hangover.
The team’s 2019 9-7 campaign is really the closest you have outside of that 2022 flop to McVay’s team even vaguely flirting with a down year, which gives hope to all in La La Land that the Rams can find their way through this painful start to the season, even with injuries mounting up.
However, there are two big differences for the 2024 season than any other during McVay’s stellar tenure.
One, there is no Donald, but you knew that already. Two, this is the first time since McVay took over for the Rams that his team has gotten off to an 0-2 start, which takes you aback a bit. It’s not to say McVay can’t work more of his football magic to right the ship, but he’ll be doing so during a crucial stretch of the season without some of his best players.
Stafford is one of the better veteran quarterbacks in the league, but even Patrick Mahomes showed last year that your supporting cast has a say in your overall success during the regular season.
Without Nacua, Kupp and Higbee for the foreseeable future, Stafford will be leaning on wide receivers Demarcus Robinson, Tutu Atwell and Tyler Johnson as well as tight end Colby Parkinson to keep the passing game afloat.
None of those players have quite eclipsed 100 yards receiving on the season. None of them have reached the end zone.
Plus, running back Kyren Williams only has 75 yards this season on 30 rushing attempts, likely due to the fact that Los Angeles is having to duct-tape its offensive line together right now. The Rams’ offense is 26th in DVOA because of all this uncertainty.
The Rams defense is slightly worse, ranking 29th in DVOA through two weeks in the NFL season. That’s the result of those injuries piling up and the loss of not only Donald but former defensive coordinator Raheem Morris. There is a lot of youth on that side of the ball without much veteran leadership. The decision to trade inside linebacker and defensive captain Ernest Jones IV right before the season looks even worse in the rearview.
With the San Francisco 49ers, Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks all looking borderline competent at worst in the NFC West, the Rams have tough sledding ahead of them to stay apace in the division.
The Rams’ next three games (vs. 49ers, at Bears, vs. Packers) don’t look quite as bad as they did before the season, and the bye week comes mercifully early in Week 6 to help heal some bumps and bruises. Arguably tougher games against the Raiders, Vikings and Seahawks await after the break.
Let’s say McVay isn’t able to rescue his free-falling football team from a 2024 collapse, and Los Angeles winds up with a top-10 draft pick.
With a quarterback class rapidly developing without a consensus top pick, it’s very possible a quarterback like Quinn Ewers, Carson Beck, Dillon Gabriel, Shedeur Sanders, Cam Ward or Jalen Milroe could be on the team’s radar.
Stafford’s contract factors in a reasonable escape hatch after the 2026 season, but let’s say McVay borrows a play from a few of Shanahan pals (Morris, Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur) and drafts a young guy to sit behind Stafford for a couple of seasons before taking over in 2027.
Of course, McVay would have to still want to coach at that point for this to be an appealing plan. But for the sake of the Rams, snagging Stafford’s replacement after a down year and letting that player develop on the sideline feels much more appealing than riding out the rest of Stafford’s playing days and facing the quarterback music down the road.
The entire ethos of McVay and Snead’s tenure with the Rams has been to leverage draft picks for immediate contributions, but one sour season can change a team’s direction. It’d be fascinating to see what Los Angeles does with a top-10 pick, something it’s not had in its pocket since drafting quarterback Jared Goff in 2016.
Perhaps that kind of top-tier draft status emboldens McVay and Snead to double down on winning now and taking a blue-chip talent to go all in on 2025. If McVay wants to step away from coaching sooner than later, getting an elite prospect to shore up the roster feels like a distinct possibility.
However, the Rams might also value the rare moment of having a top-10 pick for the sake of it and prioritize the long-term stability of the franchise over its typical “push the chips in” approach.
Either approach has its compelling arguments, which is why this team’s predicament really gets you thinking about what’s to come.
It’s easy to see a reality where Los Angeles pulls itself up by its bootstraps and grits out another Wild Card run to close the season. You don’t ever want to discount just how good this Rams staff is at weathering the storm.
However, the team’s 2022 run shows that it’s not always a foolproof plan. As McVay stares down the first 0-2 record in his head coaching tenure and his roster flounders with compounding injuries, which version of the Rams are we going to get by the end of December?
Will we get the against-all-odds winning record? Or will we find this franchise in a position its not been in since before McVay got hired, one with eyeing the the future as opposed to continually hovering in the present?
