Jeff Fisher told Chris Long that the Rams could troll Washington, as long as they didn’t lose
In the most recent episode of his podcast Green Light, former Rams defensive end Chris Long recalled a story from Week 2 of the 2012 season, when he got the idea to troll the Washington Football Team by sending out every player they acquired in the Robert Griffin III trade earlier in the year. It was a story also mentioned by Jeff Fisher on Pardon My Take earlier this year, but Long gave his side of the story on Green Light while he was interviewing Boye Mafe and asking him about being in the trade haul for Russell Wilson.
Before the game, Long told Fisher that they should only send players who they got in the RGIII trade to the captains circle for the coin toss. Fisher liked the idea, as long as the players didn’t play like shit and lose.
“I wonder if you take pride in being in the Russell Wilson haul because when I was in St. Louis and we had a really good defensive line, a bunch of first rounders, we also had this sudden infusion of talent by way of RGIII. We traded the pick—we didn’t do anything with the picks necessarily—but what we did is we had this haul of guys who played a lot of snaps. I can remember we played the, at that point Redskins, and RGIII, and I said to Jeff Fisher, “Hey man, would it be cool if we could take all the guys we got in that haul to walk about to the captain circle for coin toss?” He was like yeah yeah. I said it with an IV in my arm 20 minutes before the game and Fish goes, “That’s a great fucking idea. The only thing is that y’all can’t play like shit”. So we went out there and we beat up on them and we had all those guys midfield.”
The Rams acquired a lot more players than this, but by the 2012 season the haul was just Michael Brockers (who was not necessarily in the haul because that was L.A.’s eventual first pick anyway), Janoris Jenkins, Isaiah Pead, and Rokevius Watkins. You can see what Long meant when he stumbled over his words trying to avoid saying that the Rams wasted the haul that they got for the number two pick, at least to some degree.
(It’s hard to draft good.)
The Rams did win that game in 2012 however, taking a 31-28 victory at home thanks to a fourth quarter touchdown pass from Sam Bradford to Matthew Mulligan. Jenkins was the only player who had much to contribute that day though, with one tackle for a loss and one batted pass.
Nobody really won the trade, but at least the Rams won that day. Both before and at the end of the game.
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