Trumaine Johnson Hit With Franchise Tag

Trumaine Johnson isn’t going anywhere, but that leaves Janoris Jenkins in limbo.

Making sure that the defense stays intact is going to be a major factor when it comes to how the Los Angeles Rams will do in their first season out of St. Louis in quite some time.

Jeff Fisher is going to need all of the help he can get from the team, and both Johnson and Jenkins left the Rams with more tough decisions to make.

Things with Jenkins took an awkward turn when the quality corner decided to fire his agent that was helping represent him during negotiations, and it resulted in the Rams using the franchise tag for the first time since 2009.

Los Angeles is in no position to sit around and wait, especially with the kind of cap room that they have avail in preparation for next season — so they went with their gut.

Johnson’s tag is worth just under $14 million, as reported by NFL.com.

Placed just outside the top twenty free agents on the market by NFL.com, Johnson was the second priority for the Rams outside of getting Jenkins to come back.

Locking down with what they’ve got left is crucial, as stated earlier, and this deal, while good for the moment, could end up hurting their chances of getting Jenkins for a couple of reasons.

The first reason stems from what we saw leading up to and in Super Bowl 50 from the Denver Broncos.

They proved to be a team with a mediocre quarterback situation, even though they had Peyton Manning, but got to the top thanks to superior defensive efforts.

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Defense was able to put a stop to the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers in this past post-season from the Denver perspective, and for the Rams it’s no different in the NFC West.

Just in the last few seasons, the former St. Louis Rams were able to keep pace in a division that has had one of their teams represent in the conference championship or the Super Bowl in every season since 2011.

Every team except the Rams, that is.

Other than them, San Francisco, Seattle, and then Arizona this past season all have had their time in the limelight.

San Francisco’s faded quickly, Seattle is still trying to rebound after what could’ve been back-to-back Lombardi trophies, and the Cardinals probably don’t know what hit them this year when they got smashed by Carolina.

All that being said, the Rams have still had all three of their rivals’ numbers in the regular season, especially in divisional play.

Last season alone, the Rams split their series with the 49ers and Cardinals while managing to sweep the Seattle Seahawks in their own building and back in St. Louis.

But thanks to mediocre play outside the NFC West, the Rams had to finish another hard fought season at 7-9.

The Rams lost four games that were decided by less than a touchdown, with three of them being decided by just three points.

This should speak for itself when it comes to the offensive roller coaster they had going on during that span.

Interceptions proves to be the differential factor when looking at the stats of both Jenkins and Johnson.

Bottom Line: It comes down to what they can do with Janoris Jenkins.

While Johnson doubled his interception total from a season prior in 2015 with seven, Jenkins has stayed in the bubble between three and four per year.

And even though those aren’t bad numbers on Jenkins’ part, it helps put in perspective just how hard it was for the Rams to make the call.

Combined they pitched in seven defensive touchdowns for the Rams, though, with Jenkins going all in for five of them.

Should the Rams find a way to also bring Jenkins back, this could prove to be one of the elite defenses in the NFL yet again.

Next: Jeff Fisher Has A Lot To Prove To Los Angeles

All they really need to do is fix up the offense and this team’s potential will go through the roof.