{"id":144401,"date":"2025-06-20T08:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T08:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/144401\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T08:11:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T08:11:16","slug":"espn-highlights-several-former-rams-among-best-players-since-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/144401\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN highlights several former Rams among best players since 2000"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s been no lack of star power for the Rams<\/a> this century. In the Sean McVay era alone, the Rams have had Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey, Cooper Kupp, Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff and Todd Gurley all suit up for them. And in the early 2000s, it was Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt and the other Greatest Show on Turf playmakers leading the way.<\/p>\n

Dating back to the start of this century, how many of the game\u2019s best players have played for the Rams? ESPN created an All Quarter Century Team<\/a> with 25 years of the 2000s in the books and the Rams had a handful of selections.<\/p>\n

At defensive tackle, Donald was an obvious choice. He\u2019s a future Hall of Famer and legitimately one of the best defenders in NFL history, dominating for the entirety of his career from 2014-2023.<\/p>\n

Donald is certainly the greatest defensive tackle of the past 25 years and possibly the greatest in NFL history. His 20.5 sacks in 2018 set a single-season record for a primary defensive tackle, while his career total is second among defensive tackles (since 1982) behind\u00a0John Randle<\/a>‘s 137.5.<\/p>\n

Bobby Wagner only had a one-year stint with the Rams but he\u2019s still an all-time great at linebacker. He was one of ESPN\u2019s five selections at the position, along with Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher, Lavonte David and Luke Kuechly.<\/p>\n

At cornerback, Ramsey didn\u2019t quite make the cut but he was chosen as a \u201cpractice squad\u201d player behind Darrelle Revis, Champ Bailey, Ronde Barber, Richard Sherman and Patrick Peterson. Ramsey played three and a half years for the Rams and was a Pro Bowler each season, unquestionably establishing himself as one of the best cornerbacks of this generation.<\/p>\n

Sean McVay missed out on the coaching staff and was snubbed for Kyle Shanahan, who ESPN picked to be the team\u2019s offensive coordinator. Wade Phillips was chosen as the defensive coordinator, a position he held with the Rams from 2017-2019 \u2013\u00a0his final job in the NFL.<\/p>\n

Had Gurley not gotten hurt, he might\u2019ve had a case at running back but with only three players picked at that position, it would\u2019ve been a tough group to crack. Priest Holmes, Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry were the selections, with LaDainian Tomlinson on the practice squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s been no lack of star power for the Rams this century. In the Sean McVay era alone,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[1635,4094,240,8062,1740,1547,7,239,1014,58,2444,2611,6,245,537,530,424,3566],"class_list":{"0":"post-144401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-aaron","9":"tag-aaron-donald","10":"tag-angeles","11":"tag-bobby","12":"tag-bobby-wagner","13":"tag-donald","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-los","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-rams","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-losangelesrams","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-overall","22":"tag-overall-positive","23":"tag-positive","24":"tag-rams","25":"tag-wagner"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114714685259200083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}