The Los Angeles Rams do not extend LB Ernest Jones IV and give him permission to seek a trade

what's up everybody good late afternoon or early evening for some of you and you guys know that on this channel I like to keep an eye on Seattle Seahawk division Rivals as well as just the Seattle Seahawks because what happens with the Seattle Seahawks division Rivals has a pretty significant effect on the Seahawks when they're good makes life harder for the Seahawks and when they're bad it makes life easier for the Seahawks so I've made a few different videos this offseason already talking about the 49ers drama mostly with Brandon iuk little bit with Trent Williams as well trying to figure out what's going on over there by the way the 49ers to my knowledge have not really done anything yet uh John Lynch somebody wake him up somebody tell him that he's got to make a decision one way or the other you got to do something but uh yeah not much movement over there and in the meanwhile we've had another kind of sort of similar bit of drama popup in Los Angeles with these Rams so per Jer Fowler and a couple other sources as well across the internet the Rams have not been able to come to an extension agreement with their linebacker Ernest Jones IV so they have granted his agents permission to seek a trade so Jones is going to be a free agent next off season so this is the final year on his rookie deal he is eligible for an extension after his third year he had a really good third year and the Rams have decided to draw a line in the sand that is not where Ernest Jones IV is willing to cross so obviously if we're talking about him getting traded to the Seahawks I don't really want that and that wouldn't happen so we're not really talking about that right it's like Brandon iuk I don't want to trade for Brandon iuk and the Niners wouldn't trade him to Seattle anyway same thing here but it certainly matters if the Rams decide to trade him so Ernest Jones I fourth is LA's defensive play caller he had 145 tackles and 4 and a half sacks last year no progress made on an extension so the Rams are open to a trade and this is certainly one of the key players on the Rams defense that was pretty good last year uh he has been a player with them for a few years now he made a significant impact on the Rams team that won the Super Bowl a few years ago but has been uh Evol in and adding uh accolades as a player since then as well he became a not full-time but most of the time starter in 2022 alongside Bobby Wagner and then last year he started 15 games and put up those stats that I just mentioned averaging nearly 10 tackles a game also adding some impact as a pass rusher lots of plays made in the backfield he was a big reason why that Rams team was able to turn it around going from their really bad 2022 to making the playoffs in 2023 and in that playoff game by the way he actually had two sacks so this is a guy who has some real upside as a pass rusher somebody who is being utilized very well in that defense and you're seeing the impact of that over this last season like you go to PFF and you know how PFF can miss sometimes and I will call them out sometimes but they did grade him extremely well last year 82 grade and you go back to the previous year 2022 they were much less high on him they gave him a much worse grade and you go back to his rookie year they kind of beat him up sub 60 so you can see the Improvement as a player here he is going to turn 25 in November so about midseason he's going to flip over to 25 which means he's probably got his best football in front of him he is a little bit undersized maybe but he's already proven that he can overcome that he's already proven that he can be a really good player with that potential size deficit and and you're probably looking at like five years of his Prime in front of him at this point because of how young he still is so Ernest Jones Jr with Aaron Donald out of the picture with Jaylen Ramsey out of the picture with you know even a guy like maybe you would say Leonard Floyd out of the picture over these last couple years you could throw Bobby Wagner in there as well there are not very many players on that defense that are more important to the Rams than Ernest Jones ivth I think you'd be kind of hardpressed to find that guy who who you would say yeah that's their new stud on defense ahead of Ernest Jones so this is Meaningful this is a significant deal I'm a little bit surprised that they can't come to an agreement with him I do understand that it's an off ball linebacker and offb linebackers are not the are not in high demand the way they used to be maybe he's asking for an Old School linebacker kind of money when the Rams are very much not going to do that because they're going to look at things through a more modern lens and they're going to see an offb linebacker as being not particularly worthy of uh big payday but at the same time that is a defense that is going to be pretty dependent on somebody like Ernest Jones being uh being there for them and this is a Rams team that while they may not have Super Bowl aspirations this year they are a team that probably has playoff aspirations this year they got in by very narrow margin last year so little margins can absolutely make the difference here so I'm a little bit surprised they can't come to an agreement presumably Ernest Jones is giving them a little bit of a break excuse me because he does have one year left on his rookie deal so he would be willing to meet them halfway maybe he's not for some reason but um it's gotten to the point where they're just like yeah sure if you want to get traded go ahead negotiate something and we we'll see what we can do so I guess the question for us would be the same question I asked with auk what do we want to happen here so if you are a Seahawks fan which you probably are if you're watching this video what do you want to happen do you want Ernest Jones to get his big second contract with the Rams and be a part of a staple of that defense for the next four to five years on maybe not a record-breaking contract because Ernest Jones the fourth for as well as he played last year he's not a All Pro level linebacker he's not playing like Prime Bobby Wagner or prime Fred Warner or anything like that or would you rather him get traded for I don't know probably a second round pick at this point probably maybe maybe a little bit less maybe it'd be like a third and a fourth I don't know exactly what it would be if you guys want to speculate down below what his draft value might be what his trade value might be go ahead but as Seahawks fans what would you prefer I when we discussed this with Brandon iuk I kind of came out on the side of I would prefer iuk get traded because he's the one playmaker on that offense that is still young the others are past their Prime they're older and iuk is the guy who's going to be very good for the next five six years in all likelihood so I came down on the side of I'd rather see him traded to make the 49ers weaker over the next 5 years now you could make the same argument with Ernest Jones IV for the the exact same reasons but I also look at him being an off-ball linebacker I look at him being a playing a devalued position to a certain degree and I think I think I'd rather have the Rams invest a big chunk of their cap into a player like this that I just don't think is going to be able to affect the game the way that players of his type used to be able to affect it like um this is something that I occasionally talked about when Wagner was here and this was years ago this was not last year this was years ago Wagner was not that hard to remove from the remove from a a game plan it was not that hard to eliminate his impact like I remember that Bills game in 2020 if you guys remember that game where the bills scored like 48 points or something yeah all they did was like okay we're just going to throw the ball we're just going to throw the ball 90% of the time and they just throw it throw it throw it throw it Wagner had no meaningful impact on that game because that wasn't the part of the game that he could really impact you can do that kind of stuff with these linebackers most of the time and Ernest Jones I fourth to my knowledge is not some wizard Luke Keeley type cover linebacker so yeah I do tend to kind of lean that way I think that putting a big amount of your cap into an inside linebacker in this day and age unless he is prime Bobby Wagner Prime Luke Keeley is probably a bad idea so I think I'd prefer the Rams to give him the money but it seems like they're completely un willing to even think about doing that but let me know what you guys think let me know how you feel about this one it seems like this is going to lead to a situation where either he gets traded in the next couple weeks or he just plays out the last year of his deal I don't think he's going to get the extension admittedly because the Rams are a little too smart I think the Rams realize that the position is just not that valuable and I think they're just going to ultimately decide look we' uh uh you know we're going to make sure we hold all the cards here because we don't value you that much and maybe that would be a mistake in the short term because they were counting on having this guy this year and now they won't but longterm it probably is the right call and the Rams just won the Super Bowl a couple years ago they can afford to think in the long term they can afford to think about the next few years rather than just this one year even if they do want to make the playoffs this year all right so that's what's going on here we got a little bit of divisional drama here nice to not have any guys demanding trades from the Seahawks right now or demanding new contracts or whatever uh except maybe Gino Smith and Gino doesn't seem that interested in um fighting about it at least I I don't think that there's any indication that he's going to make a big thing out of this so nice to not have to deal with that this offseason because there will come an offseason at some point where we do we've had to deal with it in recent memory we may have to deal with it again soon all right see you guys later go Hawks uh if we ever get an injury update about about nosu and Arty Burns I will make a video we were told we would get one so if uh we do I'll make a video but until then see you guys later go Hawks