The Football Film Room Show Transcript with All-22 Highlights
Episode #22 - These Rams Aren't Playing Around
Below, I’ve posted the transcript of the most recent Football Film Room podcast and included clips of the plays I talked about in the episode.
Feel free to read the transcript on it’s own or use it (and the plays I included) to follow along with the podcast to get more context for what I’m talking about.
In this episode, I discuss the following:
The Rams are in a near identical situation to the 2020-21 Packers
What Trent McDuffie adds to the Rams
The Texans trade for David Montgomery
Breaking down Jaxson Dart’s rookie season
What the Giants’ approach should be
Here is a direct link to the podcast, and below that you can find the transcript and plays:
The Football Film Room Show - Episode #22 Transcript
Welcome to the Football Film Room Show. I’m Nick Kehoe, and we’ve got another great episode for you today. The offseason is just starting to kick into high gear. We’re on the dawn of free agency. You’ve already seen a few moves made, re-signings, trades. We’ll get to some of that in this episode.
Also want to dive into Jaxson Dart. Did a lot of analysis on his rookie season. So I want to bring that to you and talk about what I think the Giants need to do to make sure that he continues to grow in years two and beyond.
But it’s all very fast moving in terms of free agency and transactions and so on and so forth. There’s stuff happening even right now as I’m recording. So we obviously won’t be able to get to all of it in this episode. Just know whatever we miss, we will try to cover in next week’s episode.
You can check out footballfilmroom.com. I’ll put content on there as well. We’ll have you covered.
These Rams vs. the 2020-21 Packers
But the first thing I want to start off with today is the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams have a quarterback in Matthew Stafford who just won the MVP in his age-37 season:
Took his team to the NFC Championship game where they came up just short, 31-27, announced he’s coming back…
And just as things stand today, I want you all to really soak this in, really think about this. Are the Rams a Super Bowl contender next year? I think we all agree that they are, right?
And knowing that Matthew Stafford is coming back next season, is there anyone out there who truly thinks that the Rams’ focus this offseason should be on getting a quarterback of the future?
Now, I have nothing against planning for the future, having some sort of contingency plan, but I think everyone would agree that the approach the Rams should be taking this offseason is to knock that damn door down that’s in their way and keeping them from getting to the Super Bowl.
That they should be doing everything in their power to get over the hump because they don’t know how much time they have left with Stafford. They don’t know how long this window is with him. Could only be one more year.
Worry about rebuilding when it’s time to rebuild if you have a team that’s ready to win a Super Bowl right now.
The reason I wanted to present that situation to you and make you all just think deeply about where the Rams are right now and what the logical approach is is because I want to go back to 2020. Very briefly. Won’t spend too much time on this, but the Packers were in a very similar situation.
Now we’ll start with the 2020 offseason. The Packers had just come off of an NFC Championship game loss to the 49ers. They got blown out, but they were knocking on the door. Aaron Rodgers was actually one year younger than Matthew Stafford is right now. Still clearly had it. Physical skills had not diminished:
And I think everyone recognized that, okay, this is one final window for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. They are on the doorstep. They’re not that far away. They need to make a couple moves, and they could be in the big game.
And then, of course, as we all know, they go on the draft Jordan Love.
They use their first round and actually a fourth round pick to trade up to take him. Now, I don’t want to focus on that move so much. I think the Jordan Love draft pick has worked out for Green Bay. So I’m not going to criticize that.
But the Packers didn’t make any moves during the 2020 offseason to try to knock that door down and get to the Super Bowl.
And then Aaron Rodgers would go on to, of course, have one of the best seasons of his career. Won the MVP during his age 37 season, just like Matthew Stafford did.
Took his team to the NFC Championship game, just like Matthew Stafford did. Played well in that NFC Championship game, but lost 31-26, just like Stafford did, although Stafford lost 31-27.
Both those games, strangely enough, ended with Rodgers and Stafford unable to get their teams into the end zone at the end of the game to either tie the game or take the lead.
It really is freaky how similar these situations are. This is why I always say the NFL is cyclical, why I love talking about history with you.
But the Packers then, coming out of that 2020 season, were in a nearly identical situation to what the Rams are in right now. Rodgers proved he still had it, played at an MVP level. Even though you couldn’t guarantee he was going to be an MVP again in 2021, he clearly still had it, clearly was still playing very high-level football, winning football.
And I know there was some back and forth about Rodgers asking to be traded at that point, but the Packers knew they weren’t going to do that. So they knew they had Rodgers coming back for his age-38 season, just like the Rams do with Matthew Stafford next year.
And yet once again, despite being five points away from the Super Bowl, the Packers did not decide to kick the door in and do everything in their power to get to the Super Bowl when they had been on the verge and they had roughly the same team coming back.