Rams introduced three major questions a week before regular season

Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams uncharacteristically made headlines and introduced three major questions just one week before they open the regular season against the Detroit Lions.

First, LA traded former team captain and starting linebacker Ernest Jones to the Tennessee Titans in what amounted to a mid-round draft pick swap. The Rams didn’t make that move out of motivation to accumulate draft capital—they wanted to dump Jones now.

Then, there were two interesting takeaways later in the week when McVay met with reporters: Steve Avila will move back to left guard and abandon his transition to center, and Kyren Williams will be the team’s primary punt returner to start the year.

Now, five weeks from now if the Rams are faring well we’ll never look back and reflect on these questions. But if LA is slow out of the gates and has a disappointing start to the season, there’s a good chance we’ll come back to these questions as a starting point of where things initially went wrong.

Time will tell whether these moves were ill-fated or smart in the long run. For now, I’ll offer an optimistic and pessimistic take for each of these major storylines.

Steve Avila moves back to LG; Jonah Jackson takes over at center

Optimistic take:

Beaux Limmer’s preseason breakout was strong enough that he pushed for first-string reps at center. Avila, as a result, cross-trained at his former position of left guard and was visibly more effective there than he was at center. Jackson recovered from injury in time to prepare before the opener, but based on his free agent contract he has to be among the five starting linemen.

Pessimistic take:

While there’s no fair way to measure it, we can only read between the lines and assume that Avila had a poor training camp while moving inside to center. Jackson recovering from his injury just a couple of weeks before the opener didn’t leave the team much time to experiment with alternatives, so they had to commit to him as the starter now in order to develop sufficient chemistry along the OL by the time the season starts.

Ernest Jones traded to the Titans

Optimistic take:

Jones was a flawed linebacker, but then again there are only a couple of linebackers in the current NFL that don’t have significant holes in their game: Fred Warner and Roquan Smith round out that short list. The Rams knew Jones wasn’t at Warner and Smith’s level despite Jones asking for a contract that paid him in the same realm, and ultimately their partnership was unlikely to extend beyond 2024.

The team may be able to offset Jones’ absence with some combination of extra safeties, Christian Rozeboom, Jake Hummel, Troy Reeder, and Omar Speights.

Pessimistic take:

Jones’ contract demands ended up in a rare lose-lose situation where the Rams were concerned about his frustrations bleeding into the locker room and possibly setting difficult precedence for the future. While it seems like a fair idea to let a player finish out the last year of his contract and move on in the offseason, that may be easier said than done.

Kyren Williams named LA’s punt returner

Optimistic take:

The Rams know the more that Williams has the ball in his hands, the better off the team is. We saw Cooper Kupp returning punts during the prime of his career, and Los Angeles isn’t known to invest in special teams positions. Williams is probably being asked to fair catch and field the ball cleanly unless he sees an opening, so the physical toll he’ll take in this expanded role could be minimal.

Pessimistic take:

We can’t lose sight of Williams’ 2023 breakout being a surprise. Coming out of Notre Dame, draft analysts had concerns about the back’s athleticism and long speed. Perhaps a strong campaign last year was more attributable to a strong offensive line than a breakout individual performance by Williams. The addition of Blake Corum looms large, especially considering Corum was selected two rounds earlier, has better college pedigree, and a strong athletic profile.

Could Williams taking over as the punt returner be an effort by the Rams to keep him involved because his role could be diminished in 2024?