Someday, perhaps, we’ll all come together as one in this country and declare the Monday after a Super Bowl a national holiday.
Until then, it’ll simply remain a day for under-the-weather employees and over-the-top reactions.
But here’s one from the latter category that could linger for a while in the NFL, as everyone takes stock of the Los Angeles Rams’ success — following a thrilling 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI — and tries to figure out how it applies to them.
The Rams’ “all-in” win certainly raises the ante for the rest of the league. And with Matthew Stafford’s euphoric Super Bowl triumph coming on the heels of Tom Brady’s title in Tampa last year — two veteran quarterbacks getting fitted for a ring in their first seasons with new teams — it’s a safe bet that others will be looking to push their chips into the middle of the table as well.
Whether it’s an owner like Jim Irsay in Indianapolis or a team like Denver that’s currently up for sale, there’s a play to be made here. Several of them, possibly. And with the NFL salary cap set to spike over the next couple years, thanks to a new TV deal and an expanded schedule — all of it after the pandemic rollbacks of 2021 — this is shaping up to be one of the wildest offseasons in years. (Keep in mind, too: nine of the league’s 32 teams changed head coaches this winter, and four now have new general managers.)
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The list of high-profile quarterbacks that could conceivably be on the move includes Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson, Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr, Carson Wentz, Kyler Murray, Jimmy Garoppolo and Baker Mayfield.
The roll call of potential suitors likely will grow. Denver, Indianapolis, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Washington and Carolina already are in the market, but several others (Tennessee? Philadelphia? New Orleans?) may feel compelled to join it if the right opportunity presents itself, as it did for the Rams and head coach Sean McVay last January.
By the end of that bizarre 2020 season, McVay had decided it was time to move on from Jared Goff, and Stafford had quietly told the Lions he wanted no part of another rebuild. The resulting blockbuster deal, which sent Stafford to L.A. and Goff to Detroit along with two first-round picks and a third-rounder, sent shockwaves throughout the league, much as Brady’s landing in Tampa did the year before.
It’s not hard to imagine something similar happening in the coming weeks, either, now that the NFL’s star players have seen they have at least some semblance of the power that the NBA’s best have been wielding for years, and not just in free agency.
Will the Packers be able to do enough to convince Rodgers to stay in Green Bay after another playoff disappointment? Is Wilson’s restlessness in Seattle enough to trigger a trade? Are the Arizona Cardinals and Kyler Murray headed for a divorce in the desert?
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Again, the default answer used to be no, what with the NFL’s owner-friendly labor deal and all the constraints in place to limit player movement. But that’s starting to change, it seems. And how — or if — Stafford’s new Hollywood script plays a role in furthering that remains to be seen.
It’s not about going out and buying a championship, per se. The Buccaneers’ Super Bowl parade followed an offseason that saw them win the Brady sweepstakes in free agency, then add the likes of Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown and Leonard Fournette. And for the Rams’ front office, it was about being “bold” once they decided they were pot committed. As GM Les Snead put it last week, “Being bold is a little bit more than just gambling.”
Now a decade into his tenure as GM, Snead is quick to point out the Rams had the highest rate of homegrown players in the NFL on their roster this season. They’d “gone through the build” with “intentionality” as he describes it — sounding a lot like his protege, Brad Holmes, who’s just beginning his build in Detroit — and then “broken through” with a run to the Super Bowl three years ago.
Yet the Rams finally won the Super Bowl because they moved aggressively to acquire veterans to put them over the top — the trade for Jalen Ramsey two years ago, the Stafford deal last January, and the moves to add the likes of Von Miller and Odell Beckham Jr. this season.
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The Rams haven’t made a single first-round selection in the draft since 2016, when they traded up to take Goff at No. 1. And just to acquire the trio of Ramsey, Stafford and Miller, they traded away four first-round picks, a second-rounder, two third-rounders and a fourth-rounder. A lot of teams in the league haven’t had the guts to go that far — “There were a lot of rolled eyes at us,” McVay said — and some around the league no doubt were snickering when this team hit a three-game losing skid in November.
“But I do truly believe,” Snead said, “that if you’re trying to be one of 32, the math does say we probably need to think a little bit differently — and maybe do some things a little bit differently — than the other 31. … Sometimes that thinking will work and sometimes it won’t.”
Yet now that it has, don’t be surprised if others are thinking the same way.