RG3 Trade? Was it worth it?

[Vitamike]

Well fellas, I been swamped again at work and saw this thread early when there were exactly zero response and thought this thread wouldn't get much run because in my mind, the answer was an over whelming and emphatic

YES!!!

Now to follow up, did the Skins prosper in the trade too, I think they did, And as some have eluded win/win I can't and wont argue at this point. The reason? This trade was all about need. The Rams needed bodies and many of them and the Skins needed a potential 'Franchise QB'. Now did that happen? IDK, maybe? We certainly got bodies, some starters, and some still to come.

And its hard to tell how 'worth it' the trade is because we don't know what we would have gotten for Bradford and we don't know how many healthy years RG3 will be in the league.

Just as some have suggested here, Bradford's trade value, due to the new CBA would have been difficult because of the uncertainty of his actual trade value, which brings me back to my original point of need being the driving factor, at that juncture, we didn't have a 'need' at QB.

Yes, the extra picks have helped the Rams maneuver the draft board, but

WOW ALR how profound is that aspect alone? Having the flexibility of those extra draft picks helps when looking at just a single draft if not multiple drafts as well. So what, we didn't get Blackmon, in hindsight, and the DUI, I feel good about the way it worked out. It put us in a position of need this year at WR and I really like this Tavon kid, think he is dynamic and don't think we trade up for him if we had half baked Blackmon on board, and probably don't have Brockers too!

if Bradford doesn't step up and become that franchise QB we all think he can be, and RG3 overcomes his knee surgery and continues to become a franchise QB, then you will have people questioning the trade regardless of what other players they drafted with the other picks because they would still be missing that pivotal position guy, a franchise QB.t

I'm not sure if that is even true. Had Sam struggled a lot last year we had a chance to draft Geno, Barkley in later rounds or even differ until next years heavily loaded draft of QB talent.

That is why they say you can't grade a trade/draft for at least 3 years.

Really what they say is that you can't grade a drafted player for at least 3 years so since our final players drafted under the trade as it is wont be in that positions until the start of the 2018 NFL year, we wont really know the true value of the trade, that alone is amazing to me!!

It's hard to include Pead and Watkins in the trade because that was more of a result of Jacksonville's trade up to get Blackmon ahead of the Rams. That forced the Rams to trade down for better value in selecting Brockers vs taking him at #6 ( which was reported they would have had the Boys not traded up ).

So, Brockers can be counted, but the other players that were drafted via further trades can't be included because they were the result of what Jacksonville did. Had they not traded to #5, the Rams would've drafted Blackmon. Now, had the Jags trade not happened and the Rams still chose to trade down, then those players drafted as a result of the trade can be counted.

This is a funny way of looking at it. We don't really know what the Rams were going to do, the draft is all about positioning themselves and getting others to make decisions they want them to make. However even if you know for a fact that the Rams choose Blackmon, one cannot discount the fact that they took the Skins draft spot and traded it for multiple picks, those equate the value of that pick. When looking at the draft, it is so dynamic, that simply evaluating a projected pick solely on it's face value is inherently wrong. It needs to be evaluated for it's eventual value. Hence, if Blackmon were to become a HOFer we simply cannot say we would have picked Justin so the trade was a win for the Rams, right?

If we had traded Bradford we would have had significant cap issues in 2012. It would have moved Bradford's 2012 $12M salary off our books but it would have brought forward the 2013 - 2015 cap hits for his signing bonus, ($10.8M). We would also have had RG3's 2012 cap figure, ($3.8). We finished with less than $200K of our cap after spending on Finnegan & Wells. I fully accept that we could have restructured some deals to move the cap figures back for other players. (Obviously we would have had Bradford's vacated 2013 - 2015 cap space available). It would have been awkward but it could have been done. There were plenty of people saying that we couldn't trade Bradford because of his cap figures.

Now do some of you see how this would have affected our Free Agency signings?

Well done FF!

I'll end this where I started yet add an aspect as well. This trade was all about need, not of one franchise however the two. The Skins needed a 'potential' franchise QB and not a lot of bodies, the Rams had a 'potential' franchise QB yet needed a lot of bodies. Not only that, but in the Rams' favor, it was a perfect storm, there was a consensus (Not unlike the Bradford pick) that RGIII, in spite of the Heisman curse, was a 'potential franchise QB' and there were multiple bidders. This drove up the price of the Rams' no. 2 pick substantially. Had it not, it would have been a head scratcher no doubt, but the bidding war was on and for a team to acquire a bevy of picks that needed a bevy of picks due to lack of talent acquired over multiple years of squandering away opportunities leads me to believe the Rams couldn't go wrong unless they continued to squander away the bevy of picks coming their way and with that mindset, I would say Bradford would most likely go somewhere else to be a Pro Bowler and we would ruin RGII. Either your franchise is in the business of making the 'potential' talent or they are in the business of destroying it.

The last factor I really believe is inclusive, is the potential of having a ' potential franchise QB' on the roster and the booty of picks coming to the Rams helped us acquire both Jeff Fisher and Les Snead, hell who knows, maybe Kevin Demoff hangs on to Steve Spags and Billy another year? Ever thought of that?

Yes the booty of picks gave the franchise many opportunities, too many to evaluate in this simple trade, so my answer is 'YES!' it was worth it just for the mere fact that we were 15-65 (.186) going into last year over the last five years and look where we are today!!.

 

[Clayton]

You have to agree with the philosophy of going after 3 blue chip SEC defensive prospects if you don't need a QB in today's game. We just have to make sure that Ogletree and Jenkins stay on the field.

 

[demiurge]

It was absolutely the right thing to do. We'll see if its a good trade - that depends on other factors, including how well we draft. But the coaching staff is still on board with Sam, and I think this will be a great year for him. Fisher came here because there was a quality NFL starter already on the roster. Bradford is not going anywhere for a while.

I'd grade the move a solid A - if the players don't develop, that's a different thing. But to make that trade was absolutely correct, and I was impressed that Fisher/Snead took a long term package, taking the pics over several years, allowing them a better chance to manipulate the board and evaluate talent. Well done.

 

[mutigers1fan]

A player to watch could be Alabama ILB CJ Mosley. I was a big fan of his in early mocks last year but he decided to stay in school. I don't know how well his skill set would align with the Rams needs but he's still I think is worth watching. *

 

[SJ76]

Speaking of next years draft, anyone find a guy they love yet?

You kidding me? Let's just start at WR:
Sammy Wadkins
Stefon Diggs
Marquis Lee


I can I mention that this QB class coming into the year is pretty stacked as well.

I want Wadkins! He's going to be awesome and has it all.