LOS ANGELES – As the 2022 Los Angeles Rams finished a 5-12 season, the front office realized the 2021 Super Bowl LVI-winning core was aging.

“Obviously you want to reverse (or repeat) it, and you bring back a lot of those players,” Rams general manager Les Snead said. “If it didn’t work out at that point, you had to say, ‘Okay, who’s the core? How many years does that core have together? It’s not going to last forever. When is the best time to start developing a system?’ new core?’

“That’s probably when it really started. … I don’t want to say the clock struck midnight, but the core, that team, that senior class … it just doesn’t last forever.”

So changes were made, including trading star cornerback Jalen Ramsey to the Miami Dolphins for a third-round pick. For many, this move meant the Rams’ championship window was closing, as they recouped draft capital and began rebuilding rather than sticking with the philosophy Snead famously wore during the Super Bowl LVI championship parade, on a jersey with his photo and the line, “F— who choose.”

After all, the Rams won the Super Bowl by making huge moves to improve their roster, including trading for quarterback Matthew Stafford during the offseason, adding linebacker Von Miller at the trade deadline and signing Odell Beckham Jr. shortly afterwards. The moves were made to add edge rusher Aaron Donald and receiver Cooper Kupp — two players along with Stafford who Snead later called the roster’s “weight-bearing walls.”

As the Rams try to build a new Super Bowl contender, they have returned to building the roster in a more traditional way: through the draft. It’s an effort to build a new core alongside the veterans on offense, including Stafford and Super Bowl LVI MVP Kupp. While it’s still early in the careers of the team’s two draft classes since Ramsey’s departure, the success they’ve had thus far indicates the Rams are on their way.

“We’ll continue to try to develop,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “It’s different than what it looked like a few years ago. It’s different than what it looked like my very first year in 2017, which allowed us to continue to formulate a lot of good decisions.”

The trading of Ramsey, who will appear for the Miami Dolphins in 2023 against Los Angeles on “Monday Night Football” (8:15 ET, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+), was the first sign in a changing approach to the Rams’ team building philosophy. The Rams have gone from “F— them picks” to today’s 4-4 team with the first first-round draft pick in years.

THE RAMMS WERE 7-1 at the trade deadline in 2021, and there was “a confidence level based on where Donald was in his career” and the fact that outside linebacker Leonard Floyd was “really rolling,” McVay said.

“You say, ‘Hey, a Von Miller-caliber player becomes available. Let’s make an effort to get him,’ and then Odell Beckham Jr. becomes available.”

Those moves were just the latest in the swings the Rams made to get there, including trading Ramsey in October 2019 for two first-round picks and one fourth-round pick and then shipping quarterback Jared Goff, their first-round picks in 2022. and 2023 and a third-rounder in 2021 to the Detroit Lions for Stafford.

“At a time when I wasn’t really into football anymore, I got traded to LA, and it changed everything drastically for me,” Ramsey recalls of his time with the Rams. “It was just amazing.”

In addition to trading draft picks, the Rams also paid those superstars, leading to a top-heavy roster, especially after paying Stafford, Donald and Kupp after the Super Bowl win.

“It’s a different approach,” McVay said of the way the Rams have built the Super Bowl roster. “Some of it was out of necessity. I think you’ve seen a lot of models that work. I think you have to be able to commit to whatever that approach is based on all the parameters.”

Although the Rams didn’t make a trade at the 2022 deadline — they were 3-4 — they made two big moves: negotiating with the Carolina Panthers for running back Christian McCaffrey and linebacker Brian Burns. The Panthers traded McCaffrey to the San Francisco 49ers, but did not trade Burns at the deadline.

Once it became clear that the 2022 version of the Rams couldn’t reverse the way the roster was constructed, the team began preserving its draft picks and saving salary cap space.

At the time, team president Kevin Demoff referred to the change in mindset that is happening out of necessity: “(We’re) probably a few players away from winning the Super Bowl. How do we go about recruiting those players instead of saying, ‘Hey , we’re going to create all this space for one player”.

In September 2024 – after his first season in Miami – Ramsey signed a three-year contract extension worth $24.1 million per year, becoming the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history for the second time in his career. The Rams had done the same for Ramsey four years earlier, signing him to a five-year extension worth $105 million after trading for him in 2019.

On Thursday, McVay said Ramsey knows “the respect and admiration I have for him as a player and what he meant to this team.”

“There were a lot of tough decisions ahead of us as a football team,” McVay said. “And it had nothing to do with us not wanting him here. There were a lot of things we had to do as a result of some previous years and things like that.

“He understood that, so it was important for us, based on what he had done for us, to try to find a situation that was mutually beneficial. Miami was someone who was interested… (and) he was excited about that.”

During the league meetings in March 2023, following the Ramsey trade and a quiet free agency period, Snead joked, “We’re the boring Rams this year.”

During those same meetings, Demoff made it clear that the Rams were not punting in the 2023 season. The Rams started 3-6 before winning seven of their last eight games to make the playoffs.

“There’s always going to be a macro level version of where… hey, you have players who grew up together,” Snead said Tuesday. “They’re in their prime and then there’s going to be the natural path of kind of restarting that, as you start over, start over and add new players. That’s the big picture of what we’ve experienced from a 2021 standpoint.”

WHEN THE RAMS who drafted linebacker Jared Verse in April was especially important because it was the team’s first first-round pick since trading for Goff in 2016.

But while this may be a different way to build a team compared to their last Super Bowl roster, the Rams are starting to see the method pay off.

Rams rookies have recorded seven sacks and six interceptions this season, both most in the NFL, according to ESPN Research. In the 2024 draft, the Rams selected five defensive players: Verse, defensive lineman Braden Fiske (second), Kamren Kinchens (third), outside linebacker Brennan Jackson (fifth) and defensive tackle Tyler Davis (sixth).

Verse (3.5) and Fiske (3.0) rank first and second, respectively, among rookies in sacks this season. Verse also entered Week 10 as leading rookies with nine tackles for a loss, 24 pressures and 13 quarterback hits.

This group is built around defensive players drafted last year, including tackle Kobie Turner and linebacker Byron Young. Last season, Rams rookies had 19 sacks, the most in the NFL.

And in 2024, the Rams have 15 sacks by players in their first two seasons, which is the most in the NFL according to ESPN Research.

The success was most evident in the Rams’ Week 9 win over the Seattle Seahawks. In that game, Verse had a sack, Fiske had two, Kinchens had two interceptions and Davis had half a sack.

According to ESPN Research, Fiske is one of two rookies this season to record multiple sacks in a game. The Rams paid a significant fee to trade for him. According to ESPN’s draft pick ratingsThe trade of picks No. 52, 155 from Los Angeles and a second in 2025 to Carolina for pick No. 39 was the most expensive Day 2 “overpayment” of at least the past six drafts.

“There was an investment in this draft class, especially when you look at Jared Verse and Braden Fiske,” McVay said. “I thought both guys made their presence felt in a big way (against Seattle). I thought (Week 9) was kind of a coming out party for Braden Fiske in a way. He’s done some really good things. It’s hard that he was only on the card with two sacks. He certainly had an impact on much more than that if you go back and watch the film.

It’s Verse’s attitude and edge on the field that stood out to McVay during the draft process and his “toughness” reminded him of Donald and Ramsey.

“He has some things that I really like,” McVay said of Verse. “That’s been important for our defense. I think guys feed off that and that’s a good thing. You need guys like that. Aaron (Donald) had that against him too. He might not talk that loud, but the way to which he would stare into a hole through people they knew Ramsey was like.

“Sometimes the best defensive players have things that make you think, ‘Oh man, we need that.’ You need that edge, that energy, that swagger and Jared Verse certainly has that.”

And while Snead and McVay were adamant throughout the offseason that replacing Donald — a future Hall of Famer — wasn’t a one-player job, it’s also clear that they’ve built a group that they hope can be the core are of their next Super Bowl. team. One built through the draft.