Rams Pulled Off The HEIST OF THE YEAR

Rams Pulled Off The HEIST OF THE YEAR

All right, let’s talk Los Angeles Rams. This is a team obviously one of the top contenders, not just in the NFC, but in the entire National Football League to win the whole darn thing this year. And they’ve recently made a really smart move, guys. It’s what the Rams do, and they’ve done it again. But folks, this move, this massive deal the Rams pulled off, it’s even smarter than all the experts are saying. We’ll dive into the numbers in just a second, but first, I’m Nick and this is Saturday Morning Inspection. All right, the Los Angeles Rams. Every time we cover them on this channel, the reason we love talking Rams is because we love talking smart teams and smart organizations. And the Rams, they do so many smart things. It makes it easy for us. And this latest trade they made recently is just the latest example of it. And it got good reviews across the media. But when you dive actually into the numbers and the analytics, folks, this is a scary good win for the Rams. Bonkers stuff. Let’s go ahead and pull up the uh trade report right here courtesy of spot track just to refresh everyone’s memory real quick. Uh the Rams acquire the 2026 sixround pick quarterback Rajie McCreary. Uh $2 million in terms of what the cap will cost the uh Rams the rest of this year and in 2026 he will be an undrafted free agent. So McCreary it’s a one-year rental really a half season rental right for the Rams to get McCreary they surrendered a 2026 sixround pick to get him. The Titans in the process uh took on a fifth round pick from the Los Angeles Rams. Uh Spottrack goes on to note that Tennessee is takes on $2.6 million of dead cap. So not really a whole lot there from their end. McCreary is a pending undrafted free agent like I mentioned projected toward a 4-year $60 million extension in our system. So Spontra says, “Listen, we evaluated him as a player and we think he’s a really good corner and he’s in line for a big extension, but we’re not going to talk about that. That’s a that’s a future thing. We’re going to talk about now and talk about the trade specifically.” So, Spottrack evaluated McCreary and said, “Listen, he’s a good solid player worthy of an extension.” We took his numbers courtesy of Pro Football Focus just to get another data point. PFF’s not perfect, but you look at Spotra’s method and PFF’s model, and you can sit there and say if they agree, it makes sense. So, here we have McCreer’s PFF grades for his time in the National Football League. Obviously, three and a half seasons with the Tennessee Titans. His overall defensive grade is 62.6. His rookie year 71.3, then 61.3, and then so far this year 66.5. his coverage grade, which is obviously important, 60.4 rookie year, 72.2 in 2023, 58.4 in 2024, and 65.6 in 2025. So, he basically averages out to a mid to high 60s kind of player. Now, for anyone who’s not familiar with Pro Football Focus, mid to high 60s is considered a solid player. And quarterback is a notoriously really low-grading position. It’s just the nature of the beast. Unless you get lucky with a lot of tipped interceptions, your grades, just the way PFF evaluates it. And considering the modern football world we live in, are going to be depressed a little bit and that’s just where they are. So, McCiri, I would say based on these numbers, again, 60 is sort of replacement level is above average. He’s a good solid player. And this was on the Tennessee Titans who we all know over the past, you know, few seasons have been lacking in talent and lacking in cohesive coaching, you know, obviously and their offense has been really bad putting the defense in tough situations. So McCreary in a really bad environment in a tough situation has been playing at a good solid level. So you could imagine him overperforming with his time with the Los Angeles Rams. But let’s just focus on the fact that he’s a good solid player. The data support that spontracts model and now we see here Pro Football Focuses model says the same thing. All right. So now let’s take a step back and look at the trade and understand what teams are looking for when it comes to making these kind of deals. And listen, I know a lot of people will say when a trade is made, someone won the trade, someone lost the trade, you know, and and the former scouts and former executives and former agents, they’re they have access to the data and the models and the stuff I’m going to show you, at least a simplified version of it, but they don’t really have the time to walk you through how they can evaluate and approximate the value in the trade, right? The rest of us are kind of like, okay, you said it was a steal, but what makes it a steal? So, it’s important to understand why do teams love draft picks. It’s because draft picks represent a probabilistic chance to get a good player. Makes sense. So if I pull up my first graphic here, and this is a rough rough model of what teams use in terms of trying to evaluate what a pick is worth. It’s a twopart process. This is the first part. So they look at the percent chance of a hit when a when a versus when a player is selected. So they say, okay, what are the odds of a first round pick on average being a good solid player? In this case, being as good as Roger McCreary or better. So when the first round pick, generally speaking, has a 50% chance. Now look, this the formula NFL teams actually use is much more complicated. It has to do with the team, the player, the position, where in the first round. There’s a lot of variables that go into it, but just to smooth it out and makes it easy for the context of this video. 50% is a good approximation. A second rounder has a 33% chance, a third rounder 25, a fourth rounder 20, fifth fifth rounder 15, sixth rounder 10, and seventh rounder a 5% chance. You can see it drastically uh decreases, and you can first rounder good chance. Second rounder decent, third rounder okay. Okay. And by the fifth, sixth, seventh rounder, you’re like, okay, it’s a it’s a pretty much a shot in the dark, right? A heavy favorite that any player selected in that round never really becomes a good solid player. But it’s not just the hit rate that matters, right? We live in a salary cap NFL world as we all know. And every rookie based on the current collective bargaining agreement that players in uh the union and everybody has agreed upon, the NFL, the owners has said, listen, rookies are in a wage scale and rookies are very, very cheap. So, when you look at a rookie and a percent chance of being a good player, it’s not just if you use a first round pick, it’s a 50% chance of a good player that’s also cheap. And we all know cheap good players are the recipe for championships, right? There are three things you need to win a title. Good coach, good quarterback, and a lot of cheap good players. Because your salary cap world, everyone’s constrained. So, if you look at what an actual draft pick represents, let’s go on to our next graphic here. And this is what NFL teams use in their model. They look at okay what is the expected good cheap years versus where you’re selected in the draft. So a firstrounder has two expected cheap good years. Remember he has a 50% chance of being a good player at the previous draft. Four years. Again there’s an option for fifth but we’ll just assume four. Again the real model is much more complicated. We’re keeping it simple. So we’re looking at two cheap good years for a first rounder. A second rounder had a 33% chance. Four years. We’re looking at 1.3 cheap good years. A third rounder one cheap good year. And so on down the list. And you can see the number of cheap good years, expected cheap good years for each selection drops dramatically. This is why a first round pick is so valuable. And this is why second round picks are incredibly valuable as well. Because if you look at a first round pick, that’s two cheap good years per first round pick. That’s a lot of value, right? You can with enough first round picks theoretically you could just win a championship outright just on a theoretical basis. So you can see why a lot of draft picks historically are so valuable. And that’s why the Rams a few years ago, by the way, Lesne Sneed, he was able to get a lot for his draft picks because teams actually went too far to the extreme. They started to overvalue it. Now we’ve corrected sort of into an equilibrium here, which is what you see on the graph. This is sort of the model people use. All right, so now let’s get into the trade itself. This is where it really matters. I know you guys have been waiting for this part. So this is the trade results. The Rams received 0.5 half of a cheap good year. A good cheap year with McCreary, right? He gets half a season with the Rams. not guaranteed anything more. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent. They also got 0.4 good cheap years with a six round pick they received uh from Tennessee Titans. The Titans received 0.6 good cheap years with their fifth round pick. And here’s the kicker, guys. There is also a chance if McCreary plays well for the Rams and plays a lot of football, which he probably will, that he will and if he leaves in free agency and the Rams don’t resign him, the Rams will get a comp pick in return valued at anywhere, I’ll call it 6 good cheap years, basically a fifth round pick valuation. You can make an argument about where he would slide in terms of the comp pick and and that’s again another detailed discussion far beyond the context of the video. So in total, this is the big kicker. The Rams received 0.9 at a minimum and up to 1.5 good cheap years in the deal, right? This is what really matters. The Titans received 6, guys. This isn’t even close to a trade win, right? This isn’t even close. This is a huge win for the Rams. I mean, it’s this is bonkers level stuff to win this decisively. Just even if there is no comp pick, they they have a 50% 0.9 over 0.6. That’s 1.5. That’s 50%. They got 50% more value in a trade than the Titans got. I mean, this is absolutely insane level stuff. This is why Lesne Sneed. This is why Shawn McVey, this is why the Rams organization, this is why they’re always going to be contenders, right? Obviously, they’re going to have to figure out quarterback in the long term when Stafford decides to hang it up. Could be his last year. But I tell you what, when you do things like this in terms of taking advantages of of other teams and their weaknesses and their shortcomings, guys, this is insane, right? And think about if they get the comp pick. We’re talking about that point more than double the value in a trade. That is insane. The only time you ever see a trade like this with this kind of value is when a team is just in a salary cap disaster, right? They got a guy on the books that’s hurting that they want to get rid of. They want to clean up their cap. They got a guy that’s like 40 million against their cap and they say, “Listen, we we got to we got to clear up cap space somehow. If you will take the cap hit, we’ll give you a lot of value.” That’s the only time I’ve ever seen a trade generate this much value. And folks, the Rams got it done here. Phenomenal work by their front office. And we got more to break down when it comes to the Rams. But first, guys, let’s take a second here to hear from the sponsor of today’s video. All right, let’s take a break from today’s video to talk about something that’s very important to me, and I know it’s important to a lot of you guys, and that’s finding tasty food that fits all your nutrient needs to get into your active lifestyle. 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I personally love their barbecue flavors, but all of the flavors are delicious. My wife likes them, too. I mean, it’s one of these snacks that has just sort of catapulted up to the forefront of our snack selection. I didn’t even see it coming, but they’re a great product and a great company. Again, highly recommend you check out Chomps. There’s a link in the description box below. Make sure you check out Chomps today. All right. When it comes back to the Rams, I just want to walk everyone through that one more time, just step by step, so that way everybody understands exactly what the Rams have done. So again, just a quick trade review. The Rams got a sixth round pick, McCreary on a half season rental. The Titans got a fifth round pick. Okay, simple enough. You can see McCreary good player, spot track said, PFF said, makes sense. And then we’re going to look at percent chance of a hit when selected just to refresh everyone’s memory. First round 50%, second round 33%, and so on. You can see the fifth and sixth round there towards the bottom. That’s obviously important when it comes to this specific trade. And here you see what really matters, which is because rookies are cheap based on the collective bargaining agreement that’s currently in place. The value of a draft pick is the expected chance of a player being a hit. The previous graphic and how many years you get them. So again, just to refresh everyone, you can see a first round pick there has a 50% chance of a hit. Four years, 50% of four is two. And there you go. You can see and on and down for each selection. So then when you crunch the numbers and you do the math, you come up with the final table here which the Rams in conclusion 0.9 up to 1.5 because the compensatory pick options all in there of good cheap years the Titans only got 0.6. There it is. It’s that simple. And now I say all this because it’s the model that teams use is actually very complex or most teams use. Like some teams I I kind of question what the Titans are doing from a model perspective here, but I know the Rams are big into the data. I know a lot of teams are and they look at these models and they sit there and there’s there’s a lot more variables, right? It’s where you expect to be in the draft. It’s it’s your current cap situation. It’s the position. It’s the market for that position. So, there’s a lot of factors, right? Your current roster, right? There’s a lot of factors that really go into it. But right here, the Tennessee Titans, this is a this trade makes no sense to me. I don’t know why they did it, but they did. And credit to the Rams for taking advantage of it. the great Jimmy Johnson, Hall of Fame coach with the Dallas Cowboys, obviously won in college, did some good things with the Miami Dolphins in the late 90s as well. He’s famously quoted as saying, “The way to success in the National Football League is just to stand pat and let I’m paraphrasing the quote here a little bit, stand pat and let the dumb teams do dumb things, right? Let the other teams lose essentially.” And the Rams do a lot of smart things. Shawn McVey is a he, you know, his personnel package is using that heavy tight ends, using Ferguson as a as a weapon, as a wide receiver, endline tight end, Hback. We talked about that a week ago. He’s done a lot of really smart things. But the Rams also do a great job just sitting Pat and letting people come to them. We look at the Atlanta Falcons traded back. They get two first round picks, right? They won two first round picks last year and now they’re sitting at what, three and four. Yikes. They may miss the playoffs and the future prospects not looking so good without without that draft capital. The Rams, they took advantage of that opportunity, right? They’ve got a lot of draft capital in this upcoming draft class. And they won. They won that trade, it seems. And guess what? They won this one on value, too. This is what the Rams do. This is who they are. Year after year, they prove it. Less need Shawn McVey. We’ll have to see what the results shake out for the rest of the season. It’s a long season. It’s a tough division. It’s a very crowded NFC. No one’s really jumping out right now. I think the Lions, the Eagles, the uh the um Packers, and the Rams to me are the only four teams that have a shot. everyone else is kind of feel-good stories or no shot at all. Right? That’s just my feeling. And honestly, right now, I think the Rams outplayed Philly and Philly. So, I kind of give the edge to the Rams there. I really do. I think Philadelphia has shown some flaws. I don’t think Philadelphia is a bad team. I think the Lions are very beatable. They’re very streaky. And the Packers, they’re a good team. They’ve got talent, but we’ll have to see what they do in the postseason. They haven’t stepped up in a clutch moment yet. Not this, not this generation of Packers teams. Not the past few seasons, anyway. So, I like the Rams. They’ve got the coach. They got the experience and they’ve got just as much talent as anybody and they’re smarter than everybody else. Once again, as this trade showcases, the Los Angeles Rams, this is what they do. This trade, folks, was a thousand times smarter than even all the experts thought. Great job by the Rams front office.

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The Los Angeles Rams have recently made one of the biggest steals of all time. At least, that’s what the numbers say for the Rams. The Rams are clearly in another class. Fans of the Los Angeles Rams should be excited by this news.

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