(09-18-2019, 10:29 PM)Bullseye Wrote:

(09-18-2019, 02:52 PM)D6 Wrote: Bullseye, great post to begin the thread.

The negative impact of the Eric Dickerson trade for the LA Rams was so great that it likely was a key factor in the Rams 21 season stay in St. Louis.

Thank you D6!

It's uncanny how spectacularly the Rams blew that trade.   They wound up with three first round picks and three second round picks over two years.  This excludes their own picks.

https://www.profootballhof.com/football-...-or-trade/

They botched every single one of those picks.  Every. Single. One.  Particularly noteworthy is not only did they get two veteran RBs in the deal, they alwo spent two first round picks (1 in 1988 and 1 in 1989) on the RB position, trying to replace the superstar RB they traded away!

A bounty like that should have given the Rams enough talent to legitimately challenge the 49ers and Cowboys for NFL supremacy in the early 90s for years.  This was before free agency.  The Rams could have kept these players as long as they wanted.  Instead, by 1991, just four years after the trade, they were a 3-13 team.


As for that trade contributing to the relocation to St. Louis, as far as I can remember, California has seemed quite reticent when it comes to building new football stadiums.  In my 42 years as a football fan, I have known the state to build exactly two-the one in Santa Clara which is the current home of the 49ers, and the one currently under construction in Los Angeles (which I believe is privately funded).  I can't imagine the aftermath of that trade helped keep them in L.A.

Given the Jaguars history of botching the draft, especially in the first round, I continue to be mystified as to why so many are so eager to deal away one of the few legitimate superstars we actually drafted in the first round.  What would happen to this franchise if we either got a similar haul and botched it similarly, or botched it by not getting sufficient value in the first place then compounding it by botching the picks?

Bullseye,  I agree with everything you mentioned. 


If the LA Rams would have even had average or slightly below results with the trade compensation they received for Eric Dickerson,  chances are attendance and interest in the Rams wouldn't have declined substantially.   If that was the case, even with the enormous difficulty of getting an NFL stadium built in California, the NFL League office and other owners would have made it much more difficult for the Rams to move out of Southern California.  This trade probably cost the LA Market a generation of NFL football.

The Jaguars are in a highly problematic situation.  Whatever the organization decides to do regarding the Jalen Ramsey situation has very high risk.  It's a nightmarish situation for an NFL organization and fan base to be in.   Ramsey's lack of enough maturity lessens his value from the standpoint of a fan of another team.  Even if the Jaguars get a strong offer for him, the risks you touched on regarding replacing him and other players possibly trying to get out of Jacksonville if Ramsey is traded,  are almost impossible to dismiss.

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