Adrian Fedkiw
Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead at first had no intention of trading Sam Bradford. Coming off consecutive ACL tears, Snead wanted to reduce Bradford’s salary but give him the opportunity to earn some money back via playing time bonuses.
Then the phone starting ringing about his availability and the rest was history.
The Philadelphia Eagles sent Nick Foles, a 2015 fourth-round pick and a 2016 second-rounder to the Rams in exchange for Bradford and a 2015 fifth-rounder. Many Eagles fans were confused, but not mad. Maybe not even happy. It was a weird feeling.
The jury might still be out in a way on what the trade did for the Eagles. But, for the Rams, it was more about getting rid of Bradford than gaining Nick Foles.
Snead appeared on Fox Sports’ The Peter Schrager Podcast last week to discuss the Bradford-Foles trade.
And initially you’re like ‘Hey, we haven’t really thought of (trading Bradford),'” Snead said. “Who’s the answer after him? We’re really looking to try to get something done contractually. Those few teams kept calling and calling, now we’re talking about it internally. Eventually, we made the move. You very rarely see starting quarterbacks swapped. One of the reasons for us was it helped us from a financial standpoint.”
Snead explained that the second-round pick was the most important part of the swap and admitted that he didn’t think Foles would be the answer.
We also knew grabbing that extra second-round pick, whoever our quarterback was going to be last year might not work out, so it would be time to start looking again,” Snead explained. “We knew by getting that extra second-round pick it would give us the ability to maneuver more in the next draft.”
The Rams gave Foles an incentive-based, two-year deal last summer and the former Pro Bowl MVP lost hold of his starting job in November when head coach Jeff Fisher inserted Case Keenum into the starting lineup. That then led Los Angeles to trading a bundle of picks, including that second-rounder acquired in the Bradford package, to the Tennessee Titans to move up from No. 15 in the draft to No. 1 and selecting California’s Jared Goff.
I do think having the two twos in this draft was very beneficial,” Snead added. “… I think that was definitely a core part of it, a big part of the foundation of that trade.”
If you want to listen to the entire interview, click here.