Los Angeles Rams: Releasing Todd Gurley was a huge mistake

It was a big mistake of the Los Angeles Rams to let go of Todd Gurley

As the Los Angeles Rams were tight against the cap, they had to let go of some players to free up cap space in order to have spending money for free agents and draft picks. Among the players that were let go were Clay Matthews, Nickell Robey-Coleman and Todd Gurley.

All three players played significant roles on the team and their presence on the field will be missed by the Rams but none more so than Gurley.

While Gurley has been hampered by knee injuries which the public was made aware of when his touches were limited in the 2018 Super Bowl matchup, it doesn’t change the fact that Gurley is one of the premier running backs in the league.

In his five years in the league so far, Gurley has exceeded 1,000 rushing yards in three of those seasons which he did so by a significant amount. In the NFL, eclipsing the 1,000 yard rushing mark puts you in the conversation among the league’s best and the fact that Gurley did it three out of five years in the league shows how good of a player he is.

Put rushing yards aside, he still put up great numbers which show how valuable of a player he was to the Rams. He was selected to three Pro Bowls, named to the First Team All-Pro twice and was the league leader in rushing touchdowns in both 2017 (13) and 2018 (17).

After a strong 2017 season where he rushed for 1,305 yards along with 788 receiving yards, he was awarded with a four year, $60 million contract which made him the highest-paid running back at the time.

He followed that up with a strong 2018 season where he rushed for 1,251 yards but knee issues started to take a toll on him as the season went on. As mentioned before, his knee is what limited him in the Super Bowl game and it carried on into 2019. Last season, he rushed for a career-low 857 yards and saw less action in the passing game as well.

As he didn’t have a great season, it led to his release. While his stats weren’t great for a player of his caliber, every player across professional sports has bad seasons and 2019 was just that for Gurley.

With Gurley now apart of the Falcons, he’ll be on a revenge tour for the 2020 season showing the Rams what they’ll miss, what he’s still capable of and that it was a mistake to let go of him.