The Rams just traded for Cleveland Browns superstar pass rusher Myles Garrett. But before you ooh and ahh at the prospect of the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year joining Sean McVay’s superteam-in-waiting, you should probably consider what Los Angeles gave up to acquire him. Cue a wince: According to multiple reports, the Rams are giving up Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-round pick, and a 2029 third-round pick.
This is a move that harkens back to the 2021 offseason, when Los Angeles GM Les Snead—with the blessing of head coach McVay—traded QB Jared Goff plus two first-round picks to the Detroit Lions in exchange for QB Matthew Stafford. That trade, as you now know, resulted in the Rams winning a Super Bowl, with Snead basking in his win-now approach to team building by wearing a “Fuck Them Picks” T-shirt after the fact. This time around, with Stafford locked in for two more years, Snead decided to fuck them picks again, and to fuck Jared Verse for good measure.
Snead and McVay hit the jackpot going against the grain five years ago, but the circumstances are different this time around. For one, when they traded for Stafford, they acquired a future Hall of Famer at the most important position in the sport. History also tells us that, in aggregate, giving away all of your draft picks is still really fucking stupid. Now, over the past few years, Snead was able to make up for the loss of those picks by grabbing the likes of Byron Young, Kobie Turner, Braden Fiske, Puka Nacua, and Verse with his remaining picks. Verse was the 2024 Defensive Rookie of the Year, Young rates as an even better pass rusher than Verse, and Nacua—despite being a world-class moron—is arguably the best wideout in football. Those draft picks by Snead are the reason that L.A. has remained in serious contention as Stafford has neared the end of his career.
They’re also the reason why Snead felt comfortable going all-in earlier this offseason, when he traded for Chiefs CB Trent McDuffie (at a cost of this year’s first-rounder, plus three more future picks). Given that the Rams fell short of an NFC title this past season because of a lousy secondary, and because the 2026 draft was so weak, the McDuffie trade made perfect sense. Along with free-agent arrival CB Jaylen Watson, the Rams got themselves a set of corners this offseason that can prevent Sam Darnold from racking up another 350-plus yards against them in a future playoff game. Those moves alone were enough to make L.A. standalone favorites to win the Super Bowl this year, without them having to sacrifice a ton of long-term draft assets. Those moves made sense.
Nothing the team has done since then has. In fact, the Rams' offseason has only gotten weirder as it's gone along. Blessed with Atlanta’s No. 13 overall pick this past April, the team burned that pick on Alabama QB Ty Simpson, who has exactly 0.5 good seasons of college play on tape and was ranked a good 25 spots lower on the consensus boards than where he was selected. Now we have this trade for Garrett, which looks sexy on paper but again makes you wonder if McVay, or Snead for that matter, intend to stick around Inglewood any longer than Stafford will.
Jared Verse is not as good of a pass rusher as Myles Garrett; no one is. Verse is still a top-15 player at that position by PFF grades, and he ranked fourth overall in QB knockdowns last season despite having that woeful secondary behind him. Even better, Verse is still on his rookie contract, which carries just a shade over $5 million in remaining cap hit over the next two years. Garrett, who got a new deal from the Browns after demanding a trade out of Cleveland last offseason, is currently on the books for $177 million in cap hit over the lifetime of that deal, which runs to 2031 if you count the void year that the Browns tacked onto it. Verse, 25, will obviously be looking for a fat new deal before his fifth-year option kicks in in 2028, but even then he’ll probably carry a smaller price tag than Garrett, 30, presently does. The Rams will probably rework Garrett’s deal at some point, but by then he’ll probably be plying his trade for demonstrably worse team that has a barren cupboard at quarterback. Such a team will feel all too familiar to the man.
So yeah, these Rams better win now. Because once the bill comes due, they may as well bring Jeff Fisher back through the door.
