The Los Angeles Rams made a huge trade to land cornerback Jalen Ramsey from the Jacksonville Jaguars, but will he fix their broken secondary right away?
After weeks of mounting tension and frustrating, the Jacksonville Jaguars have finally parted ways with their former No. 5 overall pick in cornerback Jalen Ramsey. He was traded to the Los Angeles Rams for two future first-round picks and a future fourth on Tuesday evening, but will his arrival in the City of Angels be enough to fix their lackluster secondary?
The defending NFC Champion Rams have looked like everything but that this season. Los Angeles has lost its last three games thanks in large part of offensive ineptitude and dysfunction on the back-end of its defense.
Los Angeles traded its former starting cornerback Marcus Peters to the Baltimore Ravens for linebacker Kenny Young earlier in the day, but we all had a feeling that Rams general manager Les Snead was not done wheeling and deal.
Adding Ramsey to the Rams secondary instantaneously makes it a better unit. The guy can play all over the gridiron thanks to his great speed, ball skills and coverage ability. He’s the closest thing the NFL has seen to his idol, Deion Sanders. Like Sanders, he wasn’t long for the team that drafted him. However, Ramsey lasted only three years and change before departing Duval County.
Some might argue that the Rams have swapped one distracting player for another in replacing Peters with Ramsey. On the surface, that may be true, but Ramsey has and always will be the superior player to that of Peters. While Peters can make plenty of big plays to take the ball away from the opposition, Ramsey rarely gives up the big one as Peters did seemingly all the time.
Look for Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips to use his new toy in the defensive backfield right away. Being able to position Ramsey all over the secondary will help disguise coverages that will only make the Rams’ lackluster secondary better over time. It may not be right away, but adding Ramsey makes the Rams better in 2019 and certainly better in 2020.
Ramsey will be hitting his unrestricted free agency in 2021, as he had his fifth-year option as a former first-round pick out of Florida State exercised by his former employer in the Jaguars. While Ramsey has said that he would be interested in playing for his hometown Tennessee Titans one day, he’s now in Los Angeles, the perfect place for a superstar cornerback to become a legend.