Rams Rookie Legend Jared Verse mattered. But what LA is chasing matters more.

Nobody in Los Angeles wanted to see Jared Verse go.

That needs to be said. Verse was not just a good player; he was a beloved one. A young, relentless pass rusher who gave this defense an identity and a future to believe in. When news of the trade broke, Rams fans were left with a weird taste in their mouths.

What they got with Myles Garret is the most dominant defensive player in the league, but losing such a great voice in the locker room hurts as well. But the hard-to-swallow part is, with all due respect to the Browns, Cleveland is the purgatory of the NFL. It is where good things go and quietly disappear, and Verse deserved better than that, and time will tell whether he can survive that organization with his career intact.

Les Snead, meanwhile, made the trade without flinching. Because he was looking at a date on the calendar that changed everything.

The only team to ever do it twice

Super Bowl LXI is being played at SoFi Stadium on February 14, 2027. The very building they won a championship in four years ago. Only two teams in NFL history have ever won a Super Bowl in their home stadium. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were first in February 2021, when Tom Brady walked into Raymond James Stadium and dismantled the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9.

Then the Rams followed the very next year, beating the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 at SoFi with Cooper Kupp catching the winning score with under two minutes left.

Two teams. Two consecutive years. The only two in the history of the sport to do it.

Now the Rams have the chance to do what neither of them ever did. Win it at home twice.

The 2022 team was great, but this can be the greatest team on turf

The team that won at SoFi four years ago had Aaron Donald, Von Miller, Jalen Ramsey, Odell Beckham Jr. and Cooper Kupp. That was a great team. Good enough to win it all.

Now look at what this roster is.

Before the Garrett trade, and before the Trent McDuffie trade, the Rams already had DROY Verse, Byron Young coming off the most dominant season of his career, Kobie Turner, Braden Fiske, Nate Landman, Quentin Lake, Kam Curl and Emmanuel Forbes. That group was already considered a top 10 defense in football.

Then the Rams traded for McDuffie from Kansas City, acquiring one of the best cornerbacks in the league and signing his duo, Jaylen Watson, in free agency, pushing this defense into the top three.

Then they added Garrett.

A defense that was already top three in the league before then and is now, without any serious debate, the best defense in football. Garrett does not just add to this unit. He changes the entire dynamic of how opposing offenses have to approach a game against Los Angeles.

The text that put the NFL on high alert

Then there is the cherry on top.

Aaron Donald texted Pat McAfee on Tuesday, the day after the Garrett trade, and McAfee read it on air. Donald said the move "for sure got me thinking" about a return. He said he was 35 and two years removed from the league and needed to "see if that fire can light back up."

His former teammate Michael Brockers told the world this week that he is getting the vibe Donald might have the itch to play again.

"My guy is staying ready so he doesn't have to get ready," Brockers said.

That doesn’t sound like a man who was fully retired; rather, the language of a man watching his old team build something historic and feeling the pull of one last run without the wear-and-tear on his body. If Donald comes back as I predicted, this is no longer just the best defense in football. It is the most historically stacked defensive roster any team has ever put together in the modern era.

Donald, Garrett, McDuffie, Young, Turner, Fiske, Stafford, Puka, Adams, and Williams. All of them playing in the same building where Donald already won a Super Bowl. All of them playing for the same ring, in the same stadium they did it just four years prior.

If this team wins that Super Bowl, they do not just go down as champions. They go down as the greatest team ever assembled. Period. Not even the ‘85 Bears or 2001 Ravens.

They have the most primetime games, one of the most difficult schedules in the NFL this season, and they host the Super Bowl for a second time with a team good enough to be a contender. They had to go all-in for something no other NFL team will ever be able to do.

Host and win the Super Bowl twice.