After a 22-year absence, the Rams will be playing football in Los Angeles in 2016. We know that the team has a playoff-caliber defense in place, and we certainly know that the Rams can rush the passer. We know that they have a running back that's capable of carrying an offense in Todd Gurley. But when the Rams take the field at the Coliseum for the first time in 2016, what we
don't know is the following question: who will be playing quarterback? There's been a lot of talk about this in the news (thanks, Adam Schefter), so let's take a look at some potential QB options for the Rams.
We can start with the incumbents, Nick Foles and Case Keenum. Foles, after being swapped for Sam Bradford, was signed to a deal that GM Les Snead is already regretting. The Rams gave Foles $13.8MM guaranteed, and for 2016 he has a $6MM roster bonus that would be fully guaranteed as of March 16. Yes, the team could cut him, but that would create an $8MM dead money hit on the cap. So either way, the Rams can't get off scot-free here. It would seem particularly counter-productive to give him his roster bonus and then cut him afterward, that's for sure. (It is true that the Rams picked up a 2nd round pick in the 2016 draft as part of the Bradford trade, it should be noted.) Foles was one of the worst starting QB's in football last season, starting 11 games and completing only 56% of his passes, while picking up a paltry 6.1 yards per attempt. He also only tossed 7 TD passes, while being picked off 11 times. Coach Jeff Fisher soured on Foles so much that he turned to former Texans castoff Keenum, and, well, Keenum was better than Foles, at least. Keenum completed 61% of his throws for 6.6 YPA; he had 4 TD's and 1 INT. Fisher, for his part, said that Keenum would go into the offseason as the starter, and Snead said that Keenum "definitely" will be back next season, as a restricted free agent. Ram fans should be hoping that Keenum returns as the backup, and that Foles isn't the starter, because he may have been the worst starting QB in the NFL in 2015.
If Foles wasn't the worst starting QB in the league in 2015, Peyton Manning might have been. It's incredibly rare that a good starting QB can become available for another team, even if they are a free agent; teams almost always hold onto those guys, and for good reason, either with a new contract or via the franchise tag. So in asking the question of how the Rams can try to find an upgrade at the QB position, we're basically looking at reclamation projects, backup QB's that could be diamond-in-the-rough types, or the draft. With Adam Schefter's report that the Rams could take a look at Peyton Manning, let's get that one out of the way first. (It's widely assumed that if Manning doesn't retire, the Broncos won't be picking up his $19MM option for 2016.) Manning would certainly qualify as a reclamation project, as he would be a 40-year-old QB in 2016, and coming off a 2015 season that appeared to show that he has almost no arm strength left. And when your arm talent is lacking, you better be completing a high percentage of passes; Manning only completed 60% of his throws this season, and his TD/INT ratio was a scary 9/17. (His 6.8 YPA did barely out-do Keenum.) Given what we've seen out of Manning dating back to the late stages of the 2014 season, it's hard to imagine him having a rejuvenation in L.A. Could he be a possible improvement on the likes of Keenum and Foles? Sure, that's possible. Might he help generate excitement for the fans? That's possible as well. But even though Jeff Fisher would like his QB to be an effective game-manager, the Rams need to be aiming higher. It's great to just be able to line up and try to impose your will on the ground against overmatched teams that can't contain Gurley, but there are plenty of games where you need your QB to make plays. When the Rams needed that this season, they were toast. This all said, since Manning is essentially a game-manager now, and is like a trusted on-field coach that can diagnose defenses and check into the right run audibles, I could see the Rams taking a serious look at him--if he were serious about continuing his career--with the star power being an added bonus in the first season back in L.A. If the Broncos win the Super Bowl, though, there's no way he's going to have a better ending to his career than riding off into the winning sunset, a la John Elway.
- Is Denver's Other QB An Option?
So outside of The Sheriff, are there NFL starting quarterbacks that could be realistic fits? I just don't see it. The Redskins aren't letting Kirk Cousins get away, and ditto the Jets with Ryan Fitzpatrick (a former Ram draftee in 2005). Drew Brees? There's no way the Saints don't work something out with him, now that Sean Payton's status has been confirmed. Bradford? Yeah, not happening. (Nor should it, by the way!) Josh McCown? Apart from the fact that he's injury-prone and will be 37 in July, his contract is affordable and with the utter uncertainty surrounding the Browns at the QB position, he'll almost certainly be back, at least as a placeholder (the Browns have the #2 overall pick and could certainly take a QB). Brian Hoyer? He also has a relatively cheap contract, and the Texans only have Tom Savage behind him. In theory, Denver's other QB, Brock Osweiler, could be available, since he's a free agent. However, Denver likely views him as their future; it just remains to be seen if they would give him a big contract. And that begs the question: could a QB-needy team such as the Rams step up with a huge offer that the Broncos would be hesitant to match? It just seems so unlikely, given that the Broncos will be coming off a Super Bowl appearance and would be in the same murky QB waters that the Rams find themselves in now, if they chose to move on from Osweiler. The only realistic way for the Rams to even have a chance at Osweiler would be to pay him elite QB money, which would make the Broncos either have to commit to him with a similar offer, or franchise tag him. And that would mean paying a guy with all of 7 career starts close to $20MM for 2016. Ultimately, it would take a huge leap of faith for a team to even have a chance to pry Osweiler away from the Broncos, and it's very unlikely. Is a trade possible? I suppose you never know, but trades involving starting QB's almost never happen in the NFL. Heck, last year's Bradford-for-Foles trade was extremely rare. So for those of you hoping for a trade for Jay Cutler or Ryan Tannehill, it's almost certainly not going to happen.
So this leaves us with possible reclamation projects and backups with some upside. The Bills struck relative gold with Tyrod Taylor last offseason; he was
Joe Flacco's backup in Baltimore, and pretty much any team could have
signed him with a reasonable deal (he ended up with just $1.2MM
guaranteed, and his base salary for 2016 is just $1MM, with a bit more
available through incentives). While it's likely that the Bills try to
keep Taylor beyond 2016, can the Rams unearth a gem from the backup QB
ranks, in a similar way to what Buffalo did? One potential fit could be
Mike Glennon. With Jameis Winston obviously entrenched in Tampa Bay,
and with Glennon on the last year of his rookie deal in 2016, it might
behoove the Bucs to see what they can get for Glennon this offseason,
when they try to involve as many teams as possible in any potential
bidding for him. I find it interesting that Tampa Bay GM Jason Licht
publicly said, on Jan. 29, that it was unlikely that the team would move
Glennon because they "would hate to be in a position where your
quarterback goes down and then you’re basically throwing the towel in."
And while that might be true, the fact is that this is his last year
under his rookie deal, and they obviously aren't going to be extending
him for big money with Winston around. If teams looking for a QB want
to take a chance on him, could Tampa Bay really turn down a decent draft
pick or two, particularly if they can fill their backup QB spot with
someone else? And we've seen before that when teams are open to trading
a guy, it's smart business to publicly declare that they would have a
hard time moving him, for leverage. Glennon's completion percentage and
YPA don't jump off the page in 19 games of NFL action, but he has
thrown 29 TD's to only 15 INT's, and has shown flashes of nice arm
strength as well. At 26, he could be the type of guy that QB-needy
teams take a chance on.
Another backup QB that will be in the last year of his rookie deal in
2016 is Geno Smith, and hey, wouldn't it be fun to reunite Tavon Austin
with his college QB at West Virginia? In all seriousness, it's not like
the 25-year-old Smith doesn't have talent, though he's obviously been
quite up-and-down (probably more down, to be sure) in his short career.
With the Jets likely to commit to Ryan Fitzpatrick, the Jets are going
to have to ask themselves if they see Smith in their long-term plans.
(The Jets did draft Bryce Petty, another former Baylor star QB, in the
4th round last year.) If they don't, perhaps they could see what they
can fetch for him, similar to Tampa Bay's situation. With a high draft
pedigree and with arm talent, stranger things have happened. Of course
we've seen the downside, but we're looking for upside here from backups.
There are 3 obvious names floating around that would qualify as reclamation projects: Robert Griffin III, Colin Kaepernick, and Johnny Manziel. I'll immediately dismiss Johnny Football, folks. There's just way, way,
waaaaay too much going on there. Toxic would be a good word to describe what's going on with him, and the Rams aren't going to be that desperate to find a solution. So this leaves us with 2 guys that were once considered to be stars in the league, RGIII and Kaep. Griffin is going to be released by the Redskins, so that's a formality. He was scintillating in 2012, and severely regressed in '13 coming off that torn ACL injury. I was surprised to find that in 2014, across 9 games, he actually completed 69% of his passes, and his 7.9 YPA wasn't much worse than his 8.1 mark as a rookie. But he had a 4/6 TD/INT ratio, and he also lost 4 fumbles. As we know, he didn't play at all this season. As for Kaepernick, it's not as clear if he will be available, but given that he's due $13.9MM in '16 and given that he's apparently not happy in San Francisco, a trade or an outright release is certainly possible here. Kaep, of course, took the league by storm in 2012, the season in which he took over for Alex Smith as the 49er starter and nearly took the team to a Super Bowl win. In 2013, he showed plenty of promise as a dual-threat QB in his first full season as the starter. But in 2014 there were signs of regression as a passer, and this season he fell off the proverbial cliff before losing his starting job to Blaine Gabbert, of all people. So how much of Kaepernick's poor play in 2015 was due to his torn labrum? Was he just regressing anyway?
If I were deciding between these two guys, I would lean towards the former Baylor star. First off, Griffin is 3 years younger. He's also going to be 3 and a half years removed from that ACL surgery when OTA's roll around in 2016. And I've always thought that he was a better passer than Kaepernick, whom I believe has had more problems with basic accuracy, and the numbers would merit that out (Kaep has completed 60% of his passes in his career, with Griffin at 64%). Kaepernick-backers can point to his larger stature as a reason to suggest that he's less likely to get injured over time, and that there's a good chance that RGIII will simply never be the same after that knee injury. And yes, that's certainly possible. But if picking between the two, my gut tells me that Griffin is the more likely acquisition for the Rams. For one, there's still a chance that the 49ers hold onto Kaepernick, and for another, Griffin would almost certainly cost less (both in money and in possible draft pick cost, as Kaepernick might fetch a mid-round pick if the 49ers try to drum up a bidding war for him). Either guy, though, would bring both star power (even if those stars have dimmed) and potential upside.
The final avenue for improvement could lie with the 2016 NFL Draft. The Rams did draft Oregon State QB Sean Mannion in the third round in last year's draft, a pick that was described as "arguably the worst pick" of the draft by Rotoworld. (Yikes.) The Rams have the #15 overall pick in this year's draft, as well as the #43 and #45 picks in the second round (thanks to the Bradford-Foles trade). It would certainly seem plausible, then, that one of those three picks could be used on a quarterback. The top three QB's in this year's class seem to be Cal's Jared Goff, North Dakota State's Carson Wentz, and Memphis' Paxton Lynch. It's possible that all 3 of them will be gone by #15, but if not, perhaps the Rams will snap up whomever is left. Otherwise, it's likely that they go best player available at #15, and they still might do that anyway, even if one of those three guys were available (if they didn't like one of them enough). And, of course, they could still pick a QB with one of their two 2nd round picks, assuming they didn't go QB at #15. Perhaps Michigan State's Connor Cook or Penn State's Christian Hackenberg could be considerations in the second round. It's also possible that one of those guys could still be there at #76, which is the Rams' third round selection. In this humble writer's opinion, the Rams desperately need to use one of their first 3 picks on a pass-catching weapon that can be a chain-mover on offense, whether that's a WR or a TE. But that's another column for another time.
Like so many of you, I'm excited that Rams football is back in L.A. I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you over the coming days, weeks, months, and, if the fates will allow, years. Feel free to contact me on Twitter (my handle is @TC_Hughes), and I appreciate, in advance, your thoughts as well.
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