NFL Insider Thinks Rams ‘Should’ Trade for Falcons Pro Bowler

Grady Jarrett

Getty Grady Jarrett has been tipped for a trade to a Super Bowl team.

Grady Jarrett could make a participant in the 2022 Super Bowl even more formidable if he’s traded by the Atlanta Falcons this offseason. That’s the view of one prominent NFL writer who believes the Falcons would be wise to offload Jarrett’s hefty salary and ease a tough salary cap situation.

Jarrett’s ideal destination is identified as playing alongside arguably the best defensive tackle of his generation. To add more credence to the possibility of a deal, the proposed trade partner has a strong recent history of dealing for veteran stars, particularly on the defensive side of the ball.

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NFC West Giant Advised to Move for Jarrett

This intriguing trade scenario is outlined by ESPN Insider Jeremy Fowler, who sends Jarrett to the Los Angeles Rams: “The two-time Pro Bowler needs a new contract, and the cap-strapped Falcons won’t be eager to absorb his $23.8 million cap hit. But the 28-year-old is still explosive, and plenty of teams see him as a top-10 interior player. The star-hungry Rams should pair him with Aaron Donald and wreck the NFC West.”

There’s a lot of sense behind this trade idea. For one thing, a Jarrett and Aaron Donald double act would certainly give the Rams the best interior defensive line in the game. That’s something Rams’ general manager Les Snead might be tempted to make happen, especially given his recent willingness to strike swap deals for established playmakers on defense.

Snead dealt a pair of first-round draft picks and a fourth-round choice to the Jacksonville Jaguars for the rights to shutdown cornerback Jalen Ramsey in 2019. He engineered another high-profile deal during the 2021 season, when the Rams sent second and third-round picks this year to the Denver Broncos for edge-rusher Von Miller.

Those trades underlined how the Rams have been built to maximize a short Super Bowl window. That won’t change for a veteran team, regardless of the outcome against the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 13.


Trade Makes Sense for Falcons, Jarrett

Something similar to what the Broncos got for Miller is the type of trade haul the Falcons could expect to receive for Jarrett. He’s still below 30 and remains one of the more disruptive defensive tackles in the league.

That disruption was on pause for most of 2021, though. Jarrett struggled in a system that asked him to absorb rather than beat blockers, like on this play against the Detroit Lions from Week 16:

This much attention is a big reason why Jarrett logged just one sack all season. Another problem is the scheme of defensive coordinator Dean Pees. It’s a two-gap system that doesn’t truly suit an active lineman like Jarrett, who prefers to live in the backfield.

Jarrett would find life easier attacking gaps in the Rams’ defense, where he’d have players like Donald and Leonard Floyd to take blockers away from him. The Falcons wouldn’t have to pay much to find a big-bodied space-eater more suited to anchoring Pees’ read-and-react front.

Cost-effective signings will be the order of the Falcons’ offseason, given the team is projected to be $5,780,266 over the cap by Spotrac.com. The same source shows how Jarrett carries the second-largest cap hit, $23,833,000, on the team behind quarterback Matt Ryan.

Offloading a contract that expensive would free up some cash to help general manager Terry Fontenot address a shaky offensive line, suspect receiving options and a feeble pass rush. The extra draft picks Jarrett would yield would also better fit the way Fontenot is attempting to overhaul the Falcons’ roster for the future, in sharp contrast to the Rams’ win-now approach.

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