Each week, SB Nation NFL sites have been answering a question about the teams they cover.
Last week, we looked at who the best team was in the NFC West concluding that it’s somewhere between today’s Seattle Seahawks and tomorrow’s Los Angeles Rams.
This week, we’re asking what move each team would like to go back and redo differently from the offseason. It’s a little difficult because the moves this offseason are nearing a 100% hit mark.
Start with free agency. LT Andrew Whitworth, WR Robert Woods, C John Sullivan and CB Nickell Robey-Coleman? It’s hard to disagree with any of them as it stands. Perhaps there’s some concern over OLB Connor Barwin or CB Kayvon Webster, but Barwin is only on a one-year deal while Webster’s 2018 contract year, the final one on his deal, is easily voidable. If you count the trade deal for WR Sammy Watkins as a free agency transaction, it too has yet to perhaps bear its most valuable fruit, but November and December football looms. If Watkins produces when it’s needed most, nobody will be complaining.
As for the 2017 NFL Draft? I said back in February it was going to be an easy draft to ace given the lack of a first-round selection stemming from the 2016 NFL Draft trade to acquire the #1 overall pick for QB Jared Goff. Level of difficulty aside, the Rams nailed a solid class with TE Gerald Everett, WR Cooper Kupp and S John Johnson all offering rookie season promise, moreso than several of their first-round pick counterparts who came before them last April.
So there’s not a ton to criticize. Well, except for one deal.
The signing of RB Lance Dunbar.
It’s not a huge criticism. Dunbar came over from the Dallas Cowboys on a pretty inexpensive one-year deal. But given that he hasn’t contributed, well, anything to this point, it’s the easy target here.
I considered perhaps the lack of an extension for DL Aaron Donald or the extension for ILB Alec Ogeltree here, but there’s some argument to be had. I’m not sure there is an argument left in support of the Dunbar move.
Perhaps, then, this whole piece is just a compliment to the quality of the offseason the front office had in hitting on free agency, the draft and the Sammy Watkins trade to occupy the WR1 spot on the depth chart.
It may not get the Rams over the hump immediately, but it sure does look like it has them on the path to do so for the first time in a long, long while. And if that means taking on a Lance Dunbar move once a year?
So be it.