Sean McVay can enjoy his honeymoon. And Kevin Demoff, Les Snead and Tony Pastoors can put their phones down for vacation.
The Super Bowl champions sent their players on their way Thursday, having, over the course of the last week, effectively closed for business for the summer. Matthew Stafford got his deal in March, Aaron Donald’s came Monday and Cooper Kupp’s was signed midweek. Thus the three heroes of Feb. 13 can go, like the brain trust, away in peace.
That’s, of course, because all three of those guys got paid, becoming the first trio of teammates in NFL history to cross the $25 million per year threshold together (there are only 18 players total among the other 31 teams making that much). It’s also because, on the other end, an offseason-long process is complete. But just as much, it’s because it happened with everyone together taking ownership in extending the team’s championship window.
“There was a lot of trust involved at the end of the day,” Kupp said as he drove home on Thursday, with his offseason program complete. “There was a lot of trust involved on each side, that we wouldn’t come to this place and treat it like a negotiation at all. We tried to have a conversation and figure out what it looks like for them, balancing the things that were important for them and the things that were important for us.
“And how can we get to a place where we’re, at the end, both shaking hands and feeling good, both feeling good about what we have ahead of us? We were able to have that conversation, and it’s not writing a number on a piece of paper and just passing it back and forth until you whittle each other down. The collaborative approach, to me, just allowed us to fully understand it and find that place.”
Which, in turn, leaves the Rams in a great place as they ready to open their title defense.
In this week’s GamePlan, we’ll take a closer look at how Demoff, McVay, Pastoors and Snead got there, and how Donald, Kupp and Stafford played their parts.
