What I’m about to suggest may be a tiny bit illegal. OK, it’s totally illegal, but I think it’s worth a slap on the wrist.
Here it is: Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes should break into the hotel room of Les Snead, his counterpart with the Los Angeles Rams, at the NFL combine this week in Indianapolis and steal the famous T-shirt Snead wore at last year’s Super Bowl victory parade with the phrase “(Bleep) them picks” written across his face.
Then Holmes needs to wear that T-shirt proudly and prominently at the combine as a way of advertising his interested in trading for Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey.
Because that’s a move — actually, the move — Holmes must make this offseason: Trade a high draft pick or two to the Rams, who are in need of high picks and cap space, in order to lock up a crucial shutdown cornerback like Ramsey.
Heck, this is exactly what Snead did — while Holmes still worked him — to build the Rams into a champion when he traded two first-round picks and a fourth-rounder to the Jacksonville Jaguars for Ramsey in October 2019.
The Rams had lost the Super Bowl the year before, so Snead was in win-now mode. Two years after acquiring Ramsey, plus Matthew Stafford and Von Miller, the Rams won it all.
Ramsey’s impact was immediate. The Rams ended a three-game losing streak when he arrived and their pass defense improved from the previous season. The next season, the Rams had the best pass defense in the NFL. The past three years, they’ve ranked in the top 10 in interception rate. Much of that is due to Ramsey, who’s tracking toward the Hall of Fame as a three-time All-Pro and a six-time Pro Bowler.
If you’ve seen Ramsey play, I don’t need to tell you any of this. He’s rarely out of position and pretty much eliminates one side of the field for quarterbacks. If you’ve seen the Lions play, I don’ have to tell you that adding Ramsey would be an incalculable benefit for a defense that was third-worst in pass defense and ranked 19th in interception rate.
WHAT TO WATCH AT THE COMBINE:Could Lions trade for CB Jalen Ramsey?
The question is the price. What would Holmes have to give up to acquire Ramsey? The short answer is kind of a lot, but maybe not that much.
That’s because the Rams are about $14 million over the salary cap. Trading Ramsey would free up $25.2 million in cap space, which is a no-brainer for a Rams team that’s headed for a rebuild. Snead’s asking price would almost certainly be a first-rounder, at minimum.
So how high of a first-rounder does Snead want? The Lions have the sixth and 18th overall picks, so maybe that second first-rounder and their late pick in the second round. But if the bidding war gets hot, then Holmes must win that war with the nuclear option. He must send the sixth overall pick to the Rams.
Maybe the Lions get a minor upgrade with a swap of third-rounders to make it a bit more palatable. But even if they don’t, I don’t care. Adding a probable Hall of Famer who instantly makes the defense better just as the Lions’ window to win is opening — and perhaps only briefly — is worth the cost because there’s no guaranteed franchise-changing player the Lions can draft sixth overall.
Jalen Carter? Bryce Young? Will Anderson Jr.? Who knows what they’ll be? But we already know who Ramsey is. He’s a great player in his prime who doesn’t turn 29 until October and is under contract through 2025.
I know. It probably sounds crazy to some of you to trade the sixth pick, because some of you equate a top-10 pick with a level of preciousness normally attributed to a diamond-encrusted family heirloom. It isn’t, and I’m not even going to mention the name Eric Ebron. As Snead could tell you, any draft pick, including a high one, is merely a commodity teams can use to get better.
The Lions have eight draft picks, including five in the first two days of the draft. They have plenty of capital to still help their roster significantly this year while building for the future.
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The only argument you can make against trading for Ramsey is that this draft is deep at cornerback. Mel Kiper Jr.’s mock draft at ESPN has five corners going in the first round. And, of course, everyone thinks they’ll all be Sauce Gardner. Maybe. Or they could all be Jeff Okudah. But which one of them is going to be Ramsey?
Initially, Ramsey’s personality, from afar, rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t like his beef with former Lions receiver Golden Tate over a breakup with Tate’s sister that resulted in a postgame brawl. And I didn’t like how he petulantly walked out of an interview with L.A. reporters on “Hard Knocks” in 2020 because they asked about his contract.
But after spending a week out in L.A. covering the Rams for the Lions game in 2021, his measured and thoughtful answers impressed me. So did his relationship with reporters. You can tell a lot about athletes by how they’re thought of by the people who cover them daily. It changed my mind about him and his leadership ability.
So go find that shirt, Brad Holmes. Wear it around Indianapolis. Make your intentions known. And if it all works out this year, maybe you can wear it again after the Lions make a run in the playoffs this coming season.
Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.