The new Rams administration is off to a terrific start. Over the weekend they added one of the top young offensive linemen available and gave the offensive line an anchor when they signed center Jason Brown. (5 years, 37.5 million, 20 million guaranteed)
And just now they have really pulled a rabbit out of the hat, signing Ron Bartell after he had visited at least one other team, the Saints. (Not sure if he ever made it to Denver.) Jim Thomas reports it's 4 years, 28 million, 13.6 million guaranteed. Sounds like that's pretty much the going rate.
There has to be some gifted salesmanship going on at Rams Park to get a starting lineman off of a team one win from the Super Bowl to come to a 3-13 team (that and about 40 million bucks), and to get a promising young CB to stay in town after other teams have had plentiful opportunities to give him their pitch.
They haven't had to do anything regarding Torry Holt and Orlando Pace yet, but if they're to make any additional free agent moves, something may have to give with one or both of those two veterans. Rams are kind of behind the 8-ball here, though. They need a SS. They need a SLB. A run-stuffing DT. (Seattle got Colin Cole.) The draft hasn't looked promising at those positions. But at the same time, I'm not exactly going to be thrilled to hear lines like "We had to cut Orlando Pace to be able to sign James Butler!" or "We had to cut Torry Holt to be able to move forward with Ronald Fields!" Any move now has to be big not to be a PR mess.
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