Baker Mayfield 'Impossible Dream': Rams Have New Motivation

The football gods only know how long this Baker Mayfield experiment is going to last, but he's at least given the woebegone Los Angeles Rams a path forward.

Lost in the brutality of this Los Angeles Rams season is the fact or idea that they can't even laugh at the irony of the fact that their disastrous Super Bowl defense was saved by a former insurance pitchman.

No one, of course, is suggesting that newly minted starting quarterback Baker Mayfield is about to lead the Rams (4-9) on an improbable playoff push ... the combined holiday magic of Santa Claus, Krampus, Belsnickel, The Tomten, and every Who down in Whoville can't save Los Angeles now. 

Even the worst-behaved children are better off than the Rams this Christmas: they get coal that could serve them well in the era of rising energy costs while the blue-and-yellow Southern Californians don't even have the comfort of their own first-round draft pick to get them through this year. 

In perhaps the definition of a Festivus miracle, Mayfield served as the hero of a relatively inconsequential story, guiding the Rams to a pair of late scores that allowed them to steal a nationally-streamed 17-16 decision from the Las Vegas Raiders last Thursday night. Mayfield's bizarre yet brilliant effort, with the ink on his Los Angeles contract likely still drying, fulfilled an unspoken requirement from the football-loving public: if the NFL's national airwaves are going to subject its loyal viewers to the depleted Rams' dreary season-ending affairs, the least they can do is be entertaining. 

Mayfield helped fulfill that quota and then some. ... after risking a bit that it would be the Rams who claimed him off waivers.

"I took a gamble,'' he said. "I booked a flight before the waiver went through."

Mayfield's Thursday thriller has more or less been forgotten, buried by a combination of more meaningful affairs that will actively decide the respective playoff brackets and an 11-day layover before the Rams' next primetime folly against the only slightly better-off Green Bay Packers next Monday (5:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC). It'll likely be a game primarily viewed by those desperate for fantasy playoff points and a reprieve from yuletide glee. 

But Mayfield has given Los Angeles a hidden and not entirely meaningless subplot to work with: the previously rudderless Rams actually have something of a plan to work with moving forward. 

Mayfield's gift starts, of course, at the quarterback spot. By, it's relatively common, if not unspoken, knowledge that most consistently successful football teams carry not only their current quarterback but the quarterback of the future as well. Whether that's the same man is up for the individual team to decide. The New England Patriots' final championships of the Tom Brady era, for example, featured Jimmy Garoppolo behind him. 

Los Angeles partly eschewed the concept as part of its all-or-nothing approach, left bereft of first-round representation to obtain Matthew Stafford before last season. With the years and pressure catching up to sooner rather than later, the Rams did the right thing and inserted incumbent backups John Wolford and Bryce Perkins into increasingly meaningless contests when Stafford got hurt. 

If Mayfield's able to keep this up? Maybe he rejuvenates his career in a new town, in a new role. It's a motivation. It's a worthy gamble.

---

Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

Want to see the Champs? Get your L.A. RAMS game tickets from SI Tickets here!

Want the latest in breaking news and insider information on the Rams? Click Here

Want to join in on the discussion? Click here to become a member of the Ram Digest message board community today!

Follow Ram Digest on Twitter and Facebook.

Want even more L.A. Rams news? Check out the SI.com team page here.