Tennessee Titans: Will The St. Louis Rams Try To Trade Up?
By Les Bailey
The Tennessee Titans have a lot of history with the St. Louis Rams starting with “One Yard Short” at the end of Super Bowl XXXIV, and now employ former head coach, Jeff Fischer. Although everyone is looking forward to the 2nd pre season game when Fisher returns to L.P. Field, but will there be more history on April 30th?
the Tennessee Titans need to come out of this draft with an option at quarterback
We’ve talked about scenarios that would bring Philip Rivers to the Titans in a trade for Oregon quarterback, Marcus Mariota, we’ve discussed Jay Cutler with the Bears and maybe a trade with the Cleveland Browns and their two round draft pick being a possible suitor, but what about the St. Louis Rams?
It’s no secret that Philadelphia head coach, Chip Kelly bailed out the Rams and their $13 million dollar quarterback problem so what is up with that? The Rams get Nick Foles, and with his $2.7 million contract and save a lot of cap space, and money.
Jeff Fischer has two problems. He has done what Jeff Fischer has always done, build a crazy good defense, but doesn’t have a lot of offense. Most of that was due to losing his first-round quarterback, Sam Bradford for the lion’s share of his short career, but let’s face it, Jeff Fischer loves to build defenses.
If the Rams do indeed intend to relocate back to Los Angeles, and as soon as the 2016 season, the Rams will need to generate some offense that is exciting enough to put butts in the seats in La La Land where getting people to the ball park on Sunday afternoons has always been a problem.
It’s a big market out their, but as the Rams, and the former L.A. Raiders found out, people just don’t come to football games. They are too busy riding bikes, hiking, and going to Lakers games on Sunday afternoons.
Running a spread offense with a former Pac 12 Heisman Trophy winner is going to draw a lot more people to the stadium than Nick Foles dropping back in the pocket, and handing the ball to Tre Mason, or dumping short passes to tight end, Jared Cook.
In fact, if the Rams don’t show folks some excitement in 2015, Jeff Fischer, and his staff may not be making the move to California with the team.
Because all the aforementioned points and the Rams picking 10th in this draft, I think they are well within striking distance to make a nice deal, and dumping Sam Bradford was the key to them being in a position financially, to make a run at Marcus Mariota.
Nick Foles had a great 2013 season playing in Chip Kelly’s system, but there’s good Nick Foles, and then there is bad Nick Foles. He doesn’t really have a middle ground, so Marcus Mariota would make a lot of sense, and the Rams would have a season in St. Louis for him to develop before moving on to L.A.
I’ve held to the point that the Tennessee Titans need to come out of this draft with an option at quarterback, but I’m not sure Nick Foles is the guy.
He has the skill set that head coach, Ken Whisenhunt likes in his signal caller, but unlike Philip Rivers who would come in as the number one guy, Foles would have to shine in training camp to beat out Mettenberger.
He would be on equal footing with Zach Mettenberger, and should be able to challenge him for the starting job, and still be ready to take snaps if Zach were to get injured again.
What a prime-time game we will have on Aug 23rd if a deal with the Rams were to take place on day one of the draft.
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