Sam Bradford Goes Down (Again)

Sam Bradford tore his ACL for the Second Time in a Year

For years March 9th, 2012 was seen as a great day for the St. Louis Rams. On that day not even 3 years ago, the St. Louis Rams traded the 2nd pick in the 2012 NFL draft to the Washington Redskins for the seemingly crazy return of the 6th pick in the 2012 NFL draft, a second rounder in 2012, a first rounder in both 2013 and 2014. The Rams who were just two years removed from drafting Sam Bradford and turned the "Robert Griffin III" pick into a massive haul. The Rams turned those 4 draft picks with other trades into Greg Robinson, Alec Ogletree, Stedman Bailey, Zac Stacy, Michael Brockers, Janoris Jenkins, Isaiah Pead and Rokevious Watkins. That is five starters, two quality backups. 7 of the 8 players will be on the 2014 roster. The Rams turned 1 pick in the 2012 draft into nearly 15% of their total roster. Even despite RGIII's ACL tear in his rookie year, the Redskins were also seen as winner of trade because in the eyes of many there is no price too high to pay for a franchise quarterback.

This whole trade only made sense on one condition: Sam Bradford was the Rams' franchise quarterback. The Rams drafted #1 overall in 2010 out of Oklahoma. Although Bradford was injured and only played 3 games his last year in college, Bradford played all 16 games as a rookie, winning the AP's Offensive Rookie of the Year award. In 2011, Bradford got hurt and missed nearly half of the season helping the Rams finish just 2-14 and earn the 2nd pick in the 2012 draft. Despite the growing tag of injury prone, the Rams still had confidence that Bradford would continue to grow on his rookie campaign in 2012 and beyond when they decided to go the "sure-thing" in Griffin and make that trade.

The Rams seemed right as their record improved to 7-8-1 in 2012, their best since 2006, with Bradford throwing for career highs in yards, touchdowns, and QB rating. Since 2012, little has gone right for Bradford and the Rams' hope of him as their franchise QB. Bradford played just 7 games in 2013 before tearing his ACL and now is out again for all of 2014 with a torn ACL in the same knee. Bradford will have played just 33 of 64 games over the last 4 years when the season is done. After this season, Bradford will have just one year left on his deal and the Rams for the first time since drafting him can easily cut Bradford without a big cap hit.

Can the Rams really give up on Bradford now? Can the Rams and their fans now officially start to regret that trade? The Rams were rumored to be on the Johnny Manziel hunt before the 2014 draft, but passed on him to draft Aaron Donald and remove any questions about their confidence in Bradford. Now that Bradford is hurt all of those questions come back, not just this year in passing on Manziel, but starting 3 years ago when they traded away the RGIII pick. As RGIII proved his rookie year, he does need very much to lead a team to the post season. Robert Griffin III has led his team to the playoffs more times in his first season than Sam Bradford will led the Rams in 5. Its unfortunate that we may never get to see Sam Bradford at his full potential ever or even the 4-team race that the NFC West was shaping up to be, but now we get maybe the most interesting thing you can for in sports: a great game of "What if".