As the 2022 season for the Los Angeles Rams continues to go deeper into the tank, the Detroit Lions will benefit big-time.
There’s a Super Bowl hangover, then there’s what the Los Angeles Rams are going through this year. They won’t even benefit from being losing this season, having traded their 2023 first-round pick to the Detroit Lions in the deal to acquire Matthew Stafford.
The Rams are 3-8 right now, and their list of key injuries seems to grow by the week. The pick going to the Lions come April would be in the top-five overall if the draft were today, and it’s not in line to move. If anything, it might move up a spot or two.
Stafford has missed two of the last three games with concussion and neck issues. He was ruled out for Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks, and on Saturday he was placed on IR.
The earliest Stafford could play is Week 17. At that point there would be no point in playing him, since the Rams will surely be officially eliminated from playoff contention.
Detroit Lions to benefit greatly from Los Angeles Rams’ season going deeper into tank
No one expected the second first-round pick the Lions got from the Rams in the Stafford deal to be as good at it is sure to be. Even if the Rams didn’t win the Super Bowl again, they would surely be a playoff team this year and at worst a contender who just missed the postseason….
But Stafford, Allen Robinson, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald all may not, and in Robinson’s case for sure won’t, play again this season. The “stars and scrubs” way the Rams built their roster has left them without the depth to come anywhere close to replacing that star power. Not that they regret it, since they won a Super Bowl.
It once seemed inconceivable the Lions’ own 2023 first-round pick would be further down the board than the one they have from the Rams. That’s just what’s lined up to happen though, as fortune has smiled on the Lions in parallel to the bad fortune the Rams have been hit with.