NFL Insider Tom Pelissero on His Rams Expectation Level for the 2026 Season

Tom Pelissero will not sign off on Super Bowl-or-bust for the Rams. He will get awfully close.

Asked what he expects from Matthew Stafford and a Rams team that suddenly has people floating 17-0, the NFL insider started by pumping the brakes on the perfect-season talk. Going undefeated almost never happens, he reminded Rich, and even the rare teams that have flirted with it did so in shorter seasons. There are realistically a dozen to fifteen teams that think they can win it all, maybe six to eight with the firepower and depth to survive injuries and be standing at the end.

So no, Pelissero is not big on championship-or-bust. But the next sentence did the work.

"If they don't win the Super Bowl, it is a disappointment," he said. "The moves they've made in this offseason are the types of moves you make when you think we are a piece or two away from winning this right now."

The headline move is Myles Garrett. To get him, the Rams gave up Jared Verse, a good young player Pelissero pegged at around 24 years old, plus next year's first-round pick and two more high picks in future drafts. Garrett, in Pelissero's words, is the best defensive player on the planet, coming off a record number of sacks on a Browns team that gave him almost no pass-rush help around him. He is also into his early 30s.

That is the tension at the center of the trade. Garrett's prime has a clock on it. Verse, the player they shipped out, might just be starting to climb as Garrett begins to slip. The Rams made the deal anyway because the window they care about is this one.

It was not a one-off. Pelissero ran through the rest of the win-now ledger. The Rams dealt another first-round pick to land Trent McDuffie and handed him a record contract. They spent big in free agency, adding Jaylen Watson, the other Chiefs corner, to patch a spot they viewed as a weakness. Every one of those is a move you make when you believe the title is available today, not two years out.

What Pelissero respects is the timing. The Rams have run the cycle on purpose. A few years ago they had one of the youngest rosters in football, loaded with rookies, drafting Kobie Turner, Verse, Braden Fiske, and hitting late on players like Puka Nacua. They rebuilt the cheap young core, got the cap and the roster health back, and only then leaned back into aggression. You cannot stay maxed out forever, he noted, because the NFL forbids trading picks more than three years out, the kind of move the Timberwolves pulled in the NBA that same day.

The engine is Stafford, and Pelissero framed him as a year-to-year proposition no matter what extension he signed. He pointed to Stafford telling Chris Long about a conversation with Drew Brees, the idea being he could push into his early 40s. Stafford turns 40 by March 2028, around when his next option triggers.

Eventually the handoff comes, maybe to Ty Simpson, and the rebuild starts over. Pelissero painted the long arc all the way out. If Sean McVay and Les Snead are still running it in 2032, the Rams will be right back to trading away the veterans and stockpiling picks. For now, the picks are gone on purpose, and the verdict on that bet comes in February.