By Paul Teetor
Attention Rams fans: get ready to party like its 2022 all over again.
Consider the parallels between then and now.
The next Super Bowl is going to be held at SoFi Stadium, just like it was five years ago when the Rams won Super Bowl LVI over the Cincinnati Bengals 23–20 on Feb. 13, 2022.
And Rams owner Stan Kronke has given the team the green light to do whatever it takes to win
the Super Bowl on their home turf, just like he did five years ago.
That’s when the Rams traded a very good player in quarterback Jared Goff to the Detroit Lions for a great quarterback in Matthew Stafford. Stafford promptly led them to a Super Bowl title in his first season and won the NFL Most Valuable Player award last season. Goff has had five very good seasons with the Lions but hasn’t come close to leading the Lions to a Super Bowl win.
Of course, it wasn’t a straight up one-for-one trade. Everyone involved in the trade understood that Stafford was the greater talent, even though he was five years older and that much closer to retirement than Goff. So the Rams had to throw in a bunch of draft picks to complete the trade.
This week the Rams traded a very good player – edge rusher Jared Verse – to the Cleveland Browns for a great player in defensive end Myles Garrett.
Again, everyone involved recognized that Garrett is the greater talent, so the Rams had to throw in three high draft picks — their 2027 first-rounder, a 2028 second-rounder and a 2029 third-rounder – to convince Cleveland to make the trade.
The premium the Rams paid was high, but it’s worth it: Garrett is the greatest defensive player in the NFL, and one of the five best defensive players in NFL history alongside legends like Reggie White, Lawrence Taylor, Deion Sanders, Ray Lewis and, yes, the Rams very own Aaron Donald.
Garrett’s sudden trade to the Rams was such an out-of-the-blue thunderbolt that it immediately sparked a rumor that Donald, who retired two years ago and is now 35, would come back to give the Rams a double dose of dynamite on their defensive line of scrimmage. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen, but based on the videos of his daily workouts that he posts online, Donald could play in an NFL game tomorrow and have an impact.
The Rams felt like they missed a closer on their defense during last year’s run to the NFC championship game against Seattle, which they lost 31-27. With Garrett, they have now acquired the best closer in all of football. A two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year winner and a five-time first-team All-Pro, Garrett just last season set the league’s single-season record with 23 sacks. He is an stoppable game wrecker who is double teamed on virtually every play. That in turn opens up all kinds of possibilities for his teammates.
In his nine-year career after being the No. 1 overall pick out of Texas A&M in 2017, Garrett has totaled 125½ sacks, 23 forced fumbles and 149 tackles for a loss.
Still, the Rams are taking a gamble that he hasn’t peaked yet – and that Verse will never be quite the defensive force that Garrett is. The Rams have been big believers in Verse since selecting him with the 18th overall pick in the first round of the 2024 draft. He rewarded that faith by winning Defensive Rookie of the Year that season. But he was inconsistent in his second season as he dealt with more attention from opposing offenses with chip blocks and double-teams.
Still, the Rams envisioned Verse as a centerpiece for their defense for years to come, with a pass rush built around him and Kobie Turner, Byron Young and Braden Fiske.
Now, that responsibility will go to Garrett, who won Defensive Player of the Year in 2025 after his record-breaking performance.
Garrett, 30, is the latest in a long line of marquee acquisitions the Rams have made this offseason to remake their defense. They traded four draft picks including their No. 29 selection in April’s draft to the Kansas City Chiefs for All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie. They then signed McDuffie’s former battery mate Jaylen Watson in the opening hours of free agency.
But neither of them has the gravitas or gravity of Garrett, one of the few in the NFL who compare to former Ram Donald in terms of how much his presence will suck up the time of opposing offensive coordinators as they game plan.
According to NFL data, Garrett faces double- and triple-teams between 50-75% of snaps on any given week. But despite getting all that attention in Cleveland, Garrett still won his reps with a 24.6% pass-rush win rate in 2025, second in the NFL per Pro Football Focus.
If Garrett can win his Rams match-ups at a similar rate while taking away attention from the Pro Bowler Young and dynamic interior rushers Turner and Fiske, the Rams figure to have one of the most formidable pass rushes in the NFL.
When the Rams selected Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson in the first round of April’s draft, the feeling in the organization was that having their quarterback of the future would free them up to trade future picks. Both in pursuit of a second Super Bowl title since moving back to Los Angeles, and in hopes of maximizing Matthew Stafford’s window after the 38-year-old quarterback’s MVP campaign in 2025.
Now that they have acquired the best defensive player in the NFL, the Rams will be the first team in NFL history to pair the reigning MVP with the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. And with that pairing, there can be no disguising their ambitions of winning a second Super Bowl title since their return to Los Angeles, and to win it again at SoFi Stadium.
The trade for Garrett continues the win-now approach the Rams have had every season since they returned from St. Louis in 2016.
That year they sent six draft picks to Tennessee for the No. 1 selection that turned out to be Goff. The Rams’ message, then as now: We’re not fooling around.
“When I look at the organization, I would say we had an amazing year in 2025,” team president Kevin Demoff said in April during the NFL meetings in Phoenix. “We built on that, and we’re set up for another amazing year. But I think a decade in, the bar for this organization needs to continue to rise, right? We have one of the greatest opportunities in sports. We’re the NFL team in Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium. If we don’t use that every day to go try to be the biggest and most valuable sports brand in the world, shame on us. We should be pushing the envelope on the field. We should be pushing the envelope off the field.”
Translation: Rams fans, get ready to party like it’s 2022 all over again.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER
