What the Dallas Cowboys can learn from the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams
When the Los Angeles Rams hold their victory parade for winning Super Bowl LVI later this week, let’s hope they pour out a little champagne toast to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones for the role he played in helping them become champions.
The Rams wouldn’t have been able to move back to Los Angeles from St. Louis in 2016 and they wouldn’t have been able to build the $5 billion SoFi Stadium without Jones’ influence.
Let’s also hope that Jones and his team were paying attention and jotting down notes of how the Rams reached the mountain top by defeating the Cincinnati Bengals, 23-20. Meanwhile, the Cowboys have now gone 26 years without even making an appearance in the NFL’s showcase event.
With the final chapter of the 2021 season now written, the Cowboys get ready for a 2022 season wondering what lessons can they learn from the newly-crowned Super Bowl champions.
Be bold
The Rams didn’t just get to the Super Bowl. They made it happen. They threw caution to the wind and they put all of their chips in the middle of the table in an effort to win now.
And they did.
Unlike the Cowboys, who prefer a more conservative approach by building through the draft and refusing to spend much money in free agency, the Rams proved there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Three years after getting to the Super Bowl in 2018 with quarterback Jared Goff, the Rams gave up on the 2016 No. 1 pick in an attempt to grab a title. But giving up on Goff was no small decision since it meant dealing multiple draft picks, and he had already landed a $134 million contract extension. Still, the win now voice within the Rams’ organization won out as the team traded him to the Detroit Lions for veteran quarterback Matt Stafford last offseason.
So to Detroit the Rams sent last season’s third-round pick, their first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 first-round pick, and they had to eat $25.7 million.
Be relentless
Got Stafford, so all’s good, right? Wrong. The Rams kept busy.
During the season, Los Angeles acquired pass rusher Von Miller from the Denver Broncos for 2022’s second- and third-round draft picks, and added receiver Odell Beckham Jr. as a free agent after he was cut by the Cleveland Browns.
As of now, the Rams only have four picks scheduled in the 2022 NFL Draft and will have gone seven consecutive years without a first-round pick, thanks to previous trades.
While the Cowboys and vice president Stephen Jones inherently believe top players who are let go by other teams come with their own set of problems, the Rams value proven talent over the risk of building through the draft.
Stafford is the new poster boy for the Rams. He had never won a playoff game in his previous 12 seasons, and his four playoff wins this postseason are as many as the Cowboys have won since their last Super Bowl title following the 1995 season.
The Cowboys need to find a happy medium because winning now beats building towards nothing for 26 straight seasons.
Not only do the Cowboys need to be bold, but they also need to be relentless and strategic in maximizing the talent of their best players.
The Rams didn’t just trade Stafford and tell him to go be great. They made the game easier for him by surrounding him with talent.
Show up
And unlike the Cowboys, whose top players did not show up in the wild card loss to the San Francisco 49ers, the Rams’ star players played their best football when it mattered most.
Stafford engineered a game-winning field goal drive against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the divisional playoffs, he brought the Rams back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit against the 49ers in the NFC Championship and he tossed a fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Cooper Kupp to rally the Rams to a comeback victory in the Super Bowl.
Kupp capped a brilliant regular season — in which he won the triple crown for receivers by leading the league in receptions, yardage and touchdowns — with the Super Bowl MVP award. His 33 catches in the playoffs are the most in NFL history.
Contrast that with the Cowboys, whose late-season woes included an inability to get the ball to top receivers Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb. You can scheme your receivers open.
And then there is the matter of personal responsibility of showing up and being accountable in the moment.
Stafford and Kupp certainly did their part, but so did Miller and defensive tackle Aaron Donald on defense, who each had two sacks in the Super Bowl.
Donald also had two tackles for loss and three quarterback hits and he saved his best for last. He stuffed a run for no gain on third-and-1 with 48 seconds left. Then his pressure on fourth-and-1, as he spun quarterback Joe Burrow around, forced an incomplete pass to seal the victory.
Ironically, as much as the Rams went all-in with free agents and trades to get to the Super Bowl, it was their home-grown talent that secured the victory. (Kupp was a third-round pick in 2017 and Donald was a first-round pick 2014.)
Let’s just hope the Cowboys were taking notes from the front office to the players on the field.
Be bold. Be relentless. Show up.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
