The LA Rams Renaissance
Three years ago, the Los Angeles Rams looked like the cautionary tale every “all-in” franchise is supposed to become.
They had won Super Bowl LVI, yes—but the bill was coming due. The roster was aging. The cap was tight. The draft cupboard had been raided for years in pursuit of star power. When the Rams crashed to 5–12 in 2022, it felt like the hangover everyone predicted: a team that had mortgaged tomorrow to win today and would now have to live with the consequences.
Instead, Los Angeles did something that still doesn’t sit right with the usual NFL logic.
The Rams didn’t just recover. They rebuilt at warp speed—without the typical multi-year bottoming out—and by 2025 they are back among the league’s elite, with a roster that looks deep, fast, and young in the places that matter. Their offense is humming. Their defense is nasty again. Their trenches, once patched with veterans and expensive names, are now stocked with developmental wins and rookie-contract contributors. And they have a quarterback playing like the clock doesn’t apply to him.
This is the story of how the Rams engineered a renaissance: how they moved on from Jared Goff, won a championship with Matthew Stafford, cratered in 2022, then retooled so quickly that they’ve opened a second window—and might be even better built for the long haul than the team that lifted the trophy in their home stadium.
The Fork in the Road: Jared Goff, a Super Bowl Opportunity, and a Hard Ceiling
To understand how the Rams got here, you have to start with what they were trying to become.
When the franchise returned to Los Angeles, the goal wasn’t simply to compete—it was to matter. That meant star power, relevance, and winning at the highest level. Jared Goff, the first overall pick in 2016, was drafted to be the face of that plan.
And for a moment, it worked.
Goff’s third season (2018) was the peak of the early McVay era: 4,688 passing yards, 32 touchdowns, a 13–3 record, and a trip to the Super Bowl. The Rams had a modern offense, a young coach redefining how teams scripted and disguised plays, and a roster that looked like it could dominate for years.
Then the Super Bowl happened—and it wasn’t just a loss. It was an exposure.
Against the Patriots, Goff completed only about half his passes, the offense crawled to three points, and New England’s defensive approach planted a seed that lingered for the next two seasons: maybe the Rams could reach the mountaintop with Goff, but could they win there?
By 2020, the evidence was leaning toward “no.” The Rams had the best scoring defense in the NFL, built around Aaron Donald’s interior terror and Jalen Ramsey’s lockdown versatility. They went 10–6 and reached the divisional round, but the offense felt capped. Goff’s efficiency slipped into the middle and lower tiers of starting quarterbacks, and the league began to view Los Angeles as a team with a championship defense and an offense that couldn’t fully cash it.
That’s the key detail: the Rams weren’t rebuilding then. They were a contender that believed it was one final piece away.
So they made the trade that changed modern roster-building.
The Stafford Gamble: Trading the Future for the Missing Gear
On March 18, 2021, the Rams shipped Jared Goff, two first-round picks, and a third-rounder to the Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford.
It was the kind of move that makes traditional football people uncomfortable—an extreme bet that quarterback upgrade was worth more than long-term draft control. But Sean McVay and Les Snead weren’t trying to win the trade on paper. They were trying to win a Super Bowl.
And the payoff was immediate.
Stafford’s first season in Los Angeles elevated the entire offensive ecosystem: the Rams jumped from an offense that felt restrained into one that could attack any blade of grass. Stafford threw for nearly 5,000 yards and 41 touchdowns, and the Rams surged to 12–5 before going on a playoff run defined by both explosiveness and survival.
They blew out Arizona, then survived a thriller against Tom Brady’s Buccaneers, then battled past the 49ers, the rival that had haunted them. In Super Bowl LVI, the Rams beat Cincinnati 23–20 at SoFi Stadium, with Aaron Donald sealing the win in the final moments—an ending that felt like destiny for a defensive legend who had been wrecking offenses for a decade.
Cooper Kupp capped one of the most dominant receiver seasons ever with Super Bowl MVP honors, completing a run that included the receiving “triple crown” and a league-wide sense that the Rams had not only acquired stars—they had maximized them.
It was a masterclass in an organization recognizing its window and refusing to let it drift shut.
But it also created the hangover everyone predicted.
2022: The Hangover Season That Looked Like the Bill Coming Due
If you wanted evidence that the Rams’ strategy carried risk, 2022 was it.
The Rams started 3–9, injuries piled up, and the season spiraled into a 5–12 collapse that felt like the classic post-title drop-off. Stafford missed time. Kupp missed time. Donald missed time. The roster looked brittle, expensive, and thin in the exact places that “all-in” teams typically become thin: the margins.
The worst part wasn’t only that the Rams were bad. It was that they didn’t even have the emotional consolation prize many bad teams lean on—an early draft pick—because premium draft capital had already been moved in the Stafford deal and other win-now decisions.
This is the point where most teams enter a long winter. They shed veterans, eat dead cap, lose games, and tell fans to be patient.
Instead, the Rams chose something more aggressive: they started rebuilding while still trying to stay functional, essentially creating a two-track plan—reset the roster’s age and cap structure without abandoning competitiveness.
The first step was ruthlessness.
The Ruthless Reset: Letting Go of Big Names to Clear the Deck
Los Angeles recognized that the fastest way to reopen a window wasn’t clinging to yesterday’s stars—it was creating flexibility and replenishing depth.
That meant making emotionally difficult decisions, starting with Jalen Ramsey.
The Rams traded Ramsey to Miami, accepting a modest pick return relative to his talent, but achieving a more important goal: clearing significant salary and reshaping the roster’s age curve. They also moved on from Bobby Wagner after one season, creating additional cap space and leaning harder into a youth movement.
Those departures sent a message: the Rams were not going to keep a championship roster together for nostalgia. They were going to rebuild the structure that supports winning—especially in a cap league where the middle of the roster often matters more than the top.
Then came the move that truly defined the renaissance: the Rams turned the draft into their weapon again.
The 2023 Draft Class That Refilled the Franchise
The Rams entered the 2023 draft with an unusually large pool of picks, built through trades, compensatory selections, and a willingness to move around the board. Without a first-round selection, they still found a way to leave the draft with impact players—exactly the kind of outcome that “no picks” teams are supposed to struggle to achieve.
Four Rams landed on All-Rookie honors, including:
Steve Avila (guard)
Byron Young (edge)
Kobie Turner (interior DL)
Puka Nacua (wide receiver)
The headline was Nacua.
As a fifth-round pick, Nacua didn’t arrive with star expectations. He arrived as a developmental receiver who might contribute in two years. Instead, he exploded immediately, taking advantage of Cooper Kupp’s injuries and setting the tone for a new era: the Rams were going to find elite production from non-elite draft slots.
Nacua became a record-setting rookie producer, instantly looking like a true No. 1/1A option. Meanwhile, Kyren Williams, a recent late-round pick, broke out as a legitimate high-end running back—creating balance and making the offense less dependent on “perfect passing conditions.”
On defense, Byron Young and Kobie Turner combined for a significant sack impact, providing a crucial hint that the Rams might eventually survive life after Aaron Donald—not by finding “the next Donald,” because that doesn’t exist, but by building a deep rotation of disruptive linemen.
The Rams went 10–7 in 2023 and returned to the playoffs. They lost a tight Wild Card game in Detroit in the Stafford-Goff “trade reunion,” but the message of the season was clear: the Rams weren’t dead. They were younger. They were faster. And they had a new core forming.
Then, the franchise faced the one loss you can’t “replace” normally.
2024: Aaron Donald Retires — and the Rams Don’t Collapse
In March 2024, Aaron Donald retired. For a decade, he had been the Rams’ defensive identity—a once-in-a-generation interior player who could win games by himself. Losing him should have forced a step back.
Instead, Los Angeles treated Donald’s departure like a structural challenge rather than an emotional crisis: replace him in the aggregate. Create waves. Draft disruptive bodies. Build a front that can generate pressure without needing one player to be a superhero.
For the first time in years, the Rams finally had a first-round pick again, and they used it on a defender: Jared Verse, a high-motor edge prospect built for immediate NFL impact. They doubled down with Braden Fiske and added secondary talent like Kamren Kinchens, continuing the theme: flood the defense with young contributors and let the coaching staff sort out roles.
The early part of 2024 looked shaky—Los Angeles started 1–4, including an ugly loss in Arizona. But context mattered: the Rams were missing key offensive weapons early, and once their top targets returned, the offense steadied. They recovered to win the NFC West and entered the playoffs again as a team nobody wanted to play.
Then, the Rams authored the kind of playoff performance that announces a real defense: in the Wild Card round, Los Angeles battered a 14–3 Minnesota team, sacking the quarterback repeatedly and forcing turnovers, looking—if only for a night—like the spirit of Donald never left.
They eventually fell in Philadelphia against a stronger Eagles team, but even that loss aged well when Philadelphia went on to overwhelm other contenders. The Rams weren’t just competitive—they were close enough that the league had to respect them again.
And that set up the key offseason pivot: if the Rams were close, would they push chips back in?
They did.
2025: Davante Adams Arrives, Cooper Kupp Departs, and the Rams Go “All-In” Again
The Rams’ front office has never been sentimental in the way fans want front offices to be. They treat roster building like a constant, cold evaluation: what helps us win next?
That philosophy showed up in the most emotionally loaded move of the renaissance: Cooper Kupp was moved out, and Davante Adams was brought in on a short, expensive deal.
For Rams fans, Kupp was the face of the Super Bowl run and one of the greatest seasons a receiver has ever had. But the front office looked at age curves, durability, and roster optimization and decided it needed a new partner for Puka Nacua—one who could win in the red zone, command coverage attention, and keep the offense deadly as Stafford approached the twilight.
Adams isn’t peak Packers Adams anymore. But he’s still a problem. He still understands leverage. He still wins routes. And he still forces defenses to declare their coverage structures early, which matters enormously for a quarterback like Stafford who lives on pre-snap recognition and post-snap punishments.
The Rams paired Adams with Nacua and built a receiver duo that, on paper, can be the league’s best—especially when supported by a run game and a line that keeps Stafford clean.
Just as important: the Rams continued their tradition of building strength in less glamorous ways—offensive line stability, depth development, and smart, targeted additions rather than scattershot spending.
Why 2025 Feels Different: This Team Has Stars and Structure
The argument that 2025 Los Angeles is stronger than the 2021 championship team comes down to a simple point: this roster doesn’t look top-heavy anymore.
The Super Bowl team had elite peaks, but parts of the roster were thin and expensive. The 2025 team looks like it has:
a stable offensive identity
a two-receiver nightmare pairing
a real run game with depth
a defensive front stocked with young disruptors
and a secondary filled with contributors still on manageable deals
The biggest shock, though, is at quarterback.
Matthew Stafford, now in the late stages of his career, is playing like a quarterback with nothing left to prove—and nothing left to fear. In 2025 he looks comfortable, decisive, and aggressive, the way veteran greats look when they trust protection and trust their weapons. If you’re an opposing defense, you can’t simply “take away one thing” anymore. You can’t bracket one receiver and hope. You can’t sell out against the run without being punished. And if you try to blitz, Stafford still has the experience to identify your pressure and throw into the space you just vacated.
That’s the formula for a contender: not perfection, but inevitability.
The Real Secret: Les Snead’s Draft Work and McVay’s Development Machine
If you strip away the star names, the Rams’ renaissance is built on two repeatable advantages:
1) They draft contributors outside the premium slots
The Rams have repeatedly found real NFL players in the second, third, and later rounds—players who start, not just “fill out a roster.” That’s how you survive years without first-round picks. It’s also how you build a young core on cheap deals so you can spend strategically on stars.
2) Their coaching staff develops and deploys talent quickly
Sean McVay’s system has always been about clarity—making players fast by making their reads clean. That applies to offense and, increasingly, defense. Young players in Los Angeles tend to be asked to do specific things early, then expand as they prove competence. That accelerates growth and creates depth.
When teams “rebuild fast,” they usually have a quarterback on a rookie deal or they get lucky in one draft. The Rams did it differently: they rebuilt while paying a veteran quarterback, and they did it through volume drafting, player development, and ruthless cap decisions.
That’s why it shouldn’t have been possible.
And that’s why it happened anyway.
What It Means Now: A Real Shot at Another Lombardi
The Rams are not a feel-good story. They’re not “ahead of schedule.” They’re not a cute young team learning how to win.
They are built to win now.
They have an offense capable of scoring in multiple styles—explosive through the air, efficient on the ground, and stable in key downs because Stafford can still solve problems. They have a defense that can create negative plays and pressure without needing a single generational player to do everything. And they have an organization that’s proven, over and over, it will make the hard decisions required to stay in contention.
The rest of the league expected the Rams to pay for their Super Bowl.
Instead, Los Angeles treated that title like a starting point—then rebuilt so quickly that they’ve opened a second championship window before most teams would have finished their first reset.
That’s the Rams Renaissance.
