The Los Angeles Rams were busy on Tuesday.
The Super Bowl runner-ups in 2019 woke up on Monday morning with the realization that they needed to improve their roster. The reigning NFC Champions had lost three straight games for the first time in the Sean McVay era, and received troubling news on the injury front after starting cornerback Aqib Talib was placed on the IR with a rib injury, and starting left guard Joe Noteboom suffered a season-ending right knee injury on Sunday in the team's loss to San Francisco.
The injury news comes on the heels of running back Todd Gurley missing his first game of the season with a quad injury, and starting linebacker Clay Matthews out for the next 4-6 weeks with a broken jaw. With the injuries piling up, and the season starting to slip away, the Rams made multiple moves on Tuesday.
It all started in the morning when the Rams acquired offensive lineman Austin Corbett from the Cleveland Browns. Corbett was the No. 33 overall draft pick in the 2018 draft in exchange for a 2021 future draft pick.
Corbett, played in 11 games as a rookie and appeared in just three games this season. He lost the starting job at right guard in the offseason to Eric Kush, and was on the depth chart as the backup center. Corbett's flexibility to play multiple positions on the offensive line is a luxury for the Rams who likely will plug him into Noteboom's spot at starting left guard.
A couple hours later, rumors began to swirl that the Rams had traded starting cornerback Marcus Peters to the Baltimore Ravens in exchange for linebacker Kenny Young and a future 2020 draft pick.
Peters was originally acquired by the Rams before the 2018 season in a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs. Peters showed flashes of his former Pro Bowl self with the Rams, but also struggled at times, getting burned by quicker receivers for touchdowns at various points throughout the last two seasons.
Peters contract expires at the end of the 2019 season, and it was unlikely the Rams were going to re-sign him. However, with Talib out for at least eight weeks, and Peters being shipped to Baltimore, the Rams no longer had a starting cornerback, leading many to assume that another move was in the works.
That move finally came late in the evening, when ESPN's Adam Schefter reported that the Rams had acquired disgruntled cornerback Jalen Ramsey from the Jacksonville Jaguars in exchange for two first-round picks in 2020 and 2021 and a fourth-round pick in 2021.
Ramsey, the fifth overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, is considered to be one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL. However, after a rough 2018 season and a rocky start to the 2019 campaign, the former Florida State standout requested a trade.
The two-time Pro Bowl selection found himself in a standoff with the Jaguars front office for the last four weeks after a heated confrontation with Jacksonville head coach Doug Marrone on the sideline in Week 2. Since then, Ramsey has repeatedly missed practices and the team's last three games with a back injury.
