Los Angeles Rams looking for next edge after building Super Bowl champion roster through superstar trades

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Les Snead was standing on top of a double-decker bus in the Super Bowl parade. He wore a white long-sleeve shirt with his photo and "F--- them picks" written on it.

The Rams won a Super Bowl after Sean McVay and Willie Snead were hired. The Rams built their top of the roster through the trade market rather than through the first round of the draft. Sustaining their success is the next challenge

The Buffalo Bills will play the Rams at Sofi Stadium on Thursday in the second game of the season. They have to repeat as Super Bowl champ. The last two teams to win back-to-back Super Bowls were the New EnglandPatriots in 2003 and 2004.

It has been a challenge for teams that have been built for long term success. Seattle won one Super Bowl during the nine seasons in which it went to the playoffs.

Despite the hope from the Rams that they've extended their window -- thanks to signing McVay, quarterback Matthew Stafford and wide receiver Cooper Kupp to contract extensions and reworked defensive tackle Donald's contract to make sure he didn't retire -- to build on their Super Bowl victory,

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"You lose your players like Von Miller because other players like Cooper Kupp need more money and to win you need everything right," Mike Tannenbaum was quoted as saying. They deserve the credit for winning the Super Bowl. They don't make it to the Super Bowl if Jaquiski Tartt hangs onto that pass from Matthew Stafford in the playoffs. Everything has to go right in order to win.

Kevin Demoff, the COO of the Rams, said that the philosophy of being aggressive when you find a chance to make your team better will never change under McVay and Snead. They are always looking for a chance to win a title.

Demoff said that you are clearly in the window with some elite players who won. They are asking how to make sure that we maximize our talent.

You are trying to figure out how you can continually retool for the future, so that it isn't a sudden drop off.

The team-building philosophy of the Rams didn't work. Los Angeles was able to take advantage of the inefficiency in the market by trading for veteran players.

Demoff pointed out that the Rams traded for Stafford with two first-round picks and a third-round pick compared to the Broncos' picks.

The Rams built their team.

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The Rams got Von Miller at the trade deadline in order to get one of the final pieces of their Super Bowl winning roster. The Broncos paid $9 million of Miller's salary for the season after he was traded to the Rams. The Rams were able to add a former Defensive Player of the Year and Super Bowl winner in exchange for two Day 2 draft picks.

The Rams used to operate without high draft picks.

It was necessary with the draft picks. You had to improve after trading away picks. We did not have a first-round pick. You began to understand what life was like without that.

Once you get used to that lifestyle, you can make this work. I believe it all happened organically. We didn't intend to zig while others did. It was conversations about what was best for our team at each turn that ended up beingtical.

Tannenbaum said that they put a different spin on the conversation.

The Rams were the first team to be so aggressive in the past.

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said at the league owners' meetings that the trades this winter have to do with the Rams. You can win the Super Bowl without a draft pick.

The ambitious trade strategy was not always planned. He said seeing how McVay's first season in Los Angeles unfolded jump-start the team's aggressive approach while watching practice at the team's facility in Thousand Oaks, California.

The Rams have aggressively swapped draft picks for stars and haven't been shy about giving those standouts big-money extensions.

The Rams trade six picks, including a first, two second, and one third-round pick in 2016 and their first and second-round picks in 2017). They used the top pick on a quarterback.

The Rams traded their second and fourth-round picks to the Chiefs for Marcus Peters and a sixth-round pick.

The Rams traded their first-round pick and a sixth-round pick to New England in exchange for Brandin Cooks.

The Rams agreed to a four year $60 million extension with running back Todd Gurley.

The Rams agreed to a six-year extension with defensive tackle Aaron Donald.

The Rams agreed to a four-year, $134 million extension with the quarterback.

The Rams traded their 2020 and 2021 first-round picks, along with a fourth-round pick in 2021, to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a second-round pick in 2020 and a fifth-round pick in 2020.

The Rams have to pay $11.75 million in dead money.

The Houston Texans will receive a 2020 second-round pick from the Rams. In dead money, the Rams have $21 million.

The Rams agreed to a five-year extension with Ramsey.

The Rams traded quarterback Matthew Stafford and their first- and second-round picks to the Detroit Lions for a third-round pick in 2021. The Rams had to pay $24.7 million in dead money because of the trade.

The Rams trade their second and third-round picks in the 2020 draft to the Broncos in exchange for Von Miller. The Broncos agreed to pay $9 million to Miller for the remainder of the season.

The Rams sign Stafford to a four-year extension in March of 2022.

The Rams reworked Donald's contract to make him the first non-quarterback to average more than $30 million per season, with $65 million guaranteed over the first two years.

The Rams sign Cooper Kupp to a three-year, $80 million extension.

McVay went 11-5 in his first season as the Rams' coach after they went 4-12 in his final season.

Snead said it was like, "Holy cow." He can be even better. It's probably good.

Snead realized the organization needed to take advantage of the window. Brandin Cooks was traded to the Rams from the first round. They were able to build up their defense by trading for Marcus Peters and Aqil Talib.

McVay said, "After the '17 season, you can aggressively pursue some of those voids because you're saying, 'Hey, let's go shoot our shot.' Don't be afraid to fail.

The Rams went to the Super Bowl but lost to the Pats. Los Angeles continued to add talent after coming so close, trading two first-round picks for a defensive back.

Los Angeles missed the playoffs in 2020 and lost to the Packers in the divisional round. The Rams believed they had gone as far as they could with Goff, so they pulled their most aggressive move yet and agreed to trade him and two first-round picks to the Detroit Lions for Stafford.

The Rams' all-in, star-laden roster was questioned around the league.

It was going to challenge their depth and there was a lot of skepticism. They were able to survive with a very heavy roster. Is it sustainable?

The Rams are the only team in the history of the league with two players who have an average salary of at least $30 million per year, and they think so. Thanks to the short-term cap savings it secured by extending its returning stars, Los Angeles was able to sign former Chicago Bears receiver Allen Robinson II to a free agent contract.

Demoff said that the greatest trait Sean and Les have is their fearlessness. They don't think about what will happen if it goes wrong. They think they are making the best decisions for the organization.

Los Angeles has had to adjust in other ways because of the aggressive plan of the Rams. Snead said that the Rams have had to make up for the premium price of those star players on the back end through compensatory picks.

McVay said that people make a joke about screw the picks. We don't see that way. A lot of value is present. There's more value in those picks as they relate to developing some guys in the last part of the draft where you have a vision.

Those guys that we build around, they're not asked to be anyone but themselves, but they do have the expectation of raising the level of play of others around them and that's just by being themselves."

Los Angeles has not had a first-round pick in the last two years. Kupp, a third-round draft pick out of Eastern Washington, played in the Super Bowl. Outside the first round, the Rams have found other key players. In Super Bowl LVI, 13 of the Rams' 22 starting players were drafted by the team or signed as free agents.

Los Angeles has found talented players late in the game because they trade back to get more picks in the second and seventh rounds.

When unrestricted free agents are lost, the Rams don't necessarily replace them with other unrestricted free agents. Snead said that they would replenish with the players they had drafted.

When asked about inspiration from other teams in adopting an aggressive mindset, Snead points to a move made 11 years ago.

When Thomas Dimitroff was in Atlanta, the Falcons traded up in the draft to get wide receiver Julio Jones. It was an aggressive move that made sense for the team with Matt Ryan. It made Snead think.

Snead said that they began to win for the first time in Atlanta. One of the first to make an aggressive move was Dimitroff. This is the franchise quarterback. How are we going to build around that quarterback? We could use some future draft capital to get a better wide receiver in the draft.

We had a mentality of why. We know of this window. We need to make a bet that we can make the most of this window.

The Rams are the first team to aggressively utilize the trade market in order to build a star- studded squad.

After the Rams agreed to trade for Stafford, the Buccaneers signed quarterback Tom Brady, wide receiver Antonio Brown and running back Leonard Fournette as free agents.

When the Philadelphia Eagles spent more than $225 million in free agency to sign players such as Vince Young and Nnamdi Asomugha, they only went 8.

While the Rams' success with this strategy certainly has factored into team-building around the league, the fact that players are being aggressive about where they want to play has also led to the increased movement that favors the Rams.

When players want to be traded, we may get a call and it is, "Hey, Jalen would love to be there." Do you want to do it? Snead made a statement. It's like, "Oh, wait a minute." This is a special opportunity.

In the past, those players wouldn't knock on your door and say "Oh, I'd like to be with you" and "My team's willing to trade me." We have to sit out and think about whether or not we should take advantage of the opportunity. Maybe teams that are in might not get the chance to win.

Donald, Stafford, Kupp, and Ramsey are the core of the Rams right now. Will the Rams' strategy of trading away first-round picks have to be changed as their core gets older?

Snead thought it was interesting. It seems ironic to replace a third-round pick with a first-round choice. The third-round pick exceeded expectations. Sean likes to say, "Hey, when we do have, as Sean likes to say, players that change the math?" We can continue to thrive by drafting contributors and first through seventh graders.

As the draft goes on, it's less likely that you'll get a mathematician.

Snead said you can't plan on that. There is going to be a time when those players are done. How do we respond to that? What do we do about that situation?

I don't think it would matter if we'd had a first-round pick. We're not going to replace him. You could have drafted a player that was more of a first-round talent than a third-round one. Maybe you could make the production you lost with him with other players.

At some point, the Rams are going to have to modify their approach because at some point you're going to have to integrate good young players and rookies, according to Tannenbaum.

The Rams have had a lot of success but their unconventional and aggressive methods can lead to moves that don't work.

Because of how Los Angeles' roster was built, the Rams have been successful since McVay was hired.

The Rams' 2022. roster is built around a strong core of players, but it is also counting on improvement from several draft picks.

While Los Angeles will continue to be aggressive in holding onto this Super Bowl window, the Rams' brain trust is still figuring out what to do next.

Demoff thinks it's on to find the next inefficiency in the marketplace. I am not saying we have identified it. Even if we did, we wouldn't say what it was. In an efficient market, you're not going to beat the normal rates.

The league is more willing to trade aggressively for veterans who have contract issues. There probably isn't an inefficiency there.

Jeremy Fowler is a reporter for the sports network.