Like Thanos, the Rams extensions of Sean McVay and Les Snead were inevitable. Their partnership finally produced a championship and proved that their controversial method of team building wasn’t a boondoggle that would implode and make Los Angeles’s football gambit the town’s biggest folly since the Warner/Discovery merger.
Together they proved that first-round picks aren’t the only picks that matter and that you can have several stars on a team and it won’t come at the expense of homegrown talent. Now their partnership is extended through 2026 and while the terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, it is confirmed that Snead is now the highest-paid general manager in the league and that McVay can afford all the trips to Cancun he could want.
The Rams Extend Snead And McVay
For Les Snead, this extension comes ten years after the Rams first brought him on in 2012 back in St. Louis. He had a rough go of it at first. He took over a dumpster fire of a team and immediately made his mark by trading the number two pick to Washington for a package of picks and the right to draft Robert Griffin III. His bounty of picks enabled him to restock the cupboard on defense and eventually draft Michael Brockers and Aaron Donald.
As the mid-twenty teens went on he would demonstrate a compulsion to make moves. Be it to trade up or trade down. His cavalier attitude would lead him to trade a principal’s ransom for Jared Goff upon the franchise’s move to LA. It didn’t go well in year one and that’s when he had to jettison Jeff Fisher in favor of a coach who believed in the forward pass.
After considering several candidates including the white-hot Kyle Shanahan, he hired a relatively unknown Sean McVay, then the youngest coach in league history. Their partnership immediately generated results making a Super Bowl in year two.
The Rams ruffled a lot of feathers by essentially not caring about the first round of the draft. They traded firsts for Jalen Ramsey, Brandin Cooks, and Matthew Stafford. He also was willing to inject Von Miller and Odell Beckham mid-season amidst a November swoon.
He also had no problem giving out gargantuan extensions to Todd Gurley, Goff, and Cooks. Many thought this would doom the team but Snead continually found ways around it.
The Rams Extend Snead And McVay
Meanwhile, McVay’s “WE NOT ME” culture took firm root and all of the roster machinations were absorbed and became part of the team fabric. Snead and McVay took heat for everything they’d done and but it didn’t matter. For all the stars and the apparent lack of picks, they have the second most homegrown talent in the league many of whom contributed to their post-season success. Long story short, their acquired quarterback threw a touchdown to homegrown wide receiver Cooper Kupp and homegrown leviathan Aaron Donald sealed the Super Bowl. If the goal is to win, it shouldn’t matter how it’s done.
Snead and McVay aren’t content to win one title, they’ve built this incarnation for at least another four-year run. After that, it isn’t clear what the future holds. Stafford’s contract is up in 2026, Kupp’s in 2027, and Donald might not be in the league past 2024. McVay was rumored to be interested in broadcasting and at 40 he might decide it’s time to take that Bezos money and call games. He’d leave the game early like Madden and become a broadcasting institution. He does want a family and working weekends would be easier than all the sleepless nights watching film.
Or they could get to 2026 and decide that while this run is over, they can always find ways to rebuild. Yes, eventually replacing Donald, Kupp, Ramsey etc., is a Herculean task but they clearly love what they do and that might represent the next major challenge of their career. Either way, this window has a clear end date and no matter how many rings come out of it, it’ll be a beautiful ride.
