How Massive of a Failure Was the Jonah Jackson Signing?

Following the Rams' loss to the Detroit Lions in the 2024 Wild Card Round, the Rams immediately addressed their offensive line by signing former Lions guard Jonah Jackson to a three-year, $51 million contract. The plan was to move Steve Avila to center and for Jackson to slot in at guard.

Avila ended up not making the switch, Jackson played center, and then got injured during the 2024 season opener against the Lions. When Jackson came back, Beaux Limmer was the full time starter as was Avila and Jackson rode the bench for the rest of the season.

Jackson did play against the Seahawks and, to his credit, took the situation like a champ. Jackson is the definition of a consummate professional, and during the 2024 offseason, the Rams traded Jackson to the Chicago Bears. The Rams also signed Coleman Shelton after his one-year contract expired with the Bears. Shelton played for the Rams from 2019-2023.

Jackson is a part of the Bears' new initiative to revamp their offensive line with Drew Dalman and Joe Thuney joining him on the interior.

While keeping Avila was the right choice for the guard position, one has to wonder why the Rams couldn't make it work with Jackson playing center?

Against the Lions, Jackson seemed to be doing alright. He's a talented player, a veteran. What was the issue?

The reason why I asked is that in Pro Football Focus' Zoltán Buday best duos at every position, he names Jackson and Thuney as the best guard duo in the NFL.

The NFL seems to lack an elite guard duo right now, but the Bears' offseason acquisitions on the interior profile as the league's best," wrote Buday.

"Jackson played only 267 snaps with the Rams in 2024 and was benched despite having signed a big contract last offseason. In previous years, he ranked among the top 30 guards in PFF overall grade multiple times under then-Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, who is now the Chicago Bears' head coach. Slightly above-average play from Jackson could be enough to make this duo the best in the NFL."

"Joe Thuney is arguably the best pass-blocking guard in the NFL. Before moving to left tackle in 2024, he was playing some of the best football of his career. Between Week 5 and Week 12, he allowed only one pressure on 316 pass plays and earned a 95.6 PFF pass-blocking grade, which led all guards by a significant margin."

It's easy to see why Buday said that. Joe Thuney is one of the best if not the best guard in football. The only reason Kansas City got rid of him is because he's older and they wanted to retain his young successor Trey Smith.

Jackson is an extremely talented player. Whatever the reason why it couldn't work with him at center, considering Avila and Kevin Dotson are an excellent guard duo themselves, has to be a good one, and I have to trust Les Snead on this.

Unfortunately for Snead, if Buday's words ring true, this will go down as one of his biggest failures as general manager. The good news for his is that this failure is nothing close to job-threatening nor should it ever have been.

Snead's been here before. Greg Robinson turned into Andrew Whitworth so it's not anything to sound the alarm on.

More of just a what could have been.