Good news, Rams! You’re moving to Los Angeles for the 2016 football season. Bad news, Rams! The 2016 football season starts sooner than you think.
In some respects, the 2016 football season already has begun. Injured players can rehab at the team’s facility. For now, the facility is in St. Louis. At some point, it won’t be.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the current plan is to conduct the offseason program, which starts in April, in Los Angeles. It will require the Rams to find an appropriate facility and fill it with all of the necessary equipment. It also will require the players under contract to make their way to L.A., with living arrangements for the full extent of the three-phase program.
The ensuing turmoil could result in plenty of Rams players choosing not to participate in the voluntary portion of the program. With only one three-day mandatory minicamp to attend, the rest can choose to wait to make the move until the start of training camp, in theory.
One way to combat this would be to tie significant payments to workout bonuses. In hindsight, it would have been wise for the Rams to hinge high-dollar payments for most key players on participation in the vast majority of the offseason program. (And maybe they did.)
Obviously, the move to L.A. has much more to do with the future of the franchise and not the present. But the perpetually middle-of-the-pack Rams could have a harder time staying in the middle of the pack in 2016, thanks to the disruption arising from the move.
Especially since the disruption begins pretty much immediately.
