The Los Angeles Rams are serious about building off their impressive season a year ago and that means doing great work this offseason. That not only involves adding players through free agency, but also retaining some of their own and a very important player the Rams were able to retain is guard Kevin Dotson.
Dotson was acquired by the Rams last year and established himself as the team’s starting right guard, proving to be a reliable piece to the offensive line. The Rams and Dotson were able to agree to a three-year, $48 million contract extension this offseason and the guard was happy with the negotiations overall, noting that the Rams were respectable and never tried to lowball him.
“I just think we had pretty good communication with each other,” Dotson said. “And my agent is really good at being able to get us to that point where everybody feels comfortable and being able to get into the situation where we’re having talks about respectable numbers pretty early on. I think they did a good job of not going how the usual route goes.
“I asked a lot of people who’ve been in contracts before about what’s the first, how it’s going to start and stuff like that and they said usually teams gives you a really, really small starting point just to kind of haggle and they didn’t really haggle too much with me or try to start low balling me at the beginning. Everything felt respectable from the beginning to end so I think they made the process easy too.”
It is pretty standard for teams to often start lower while players are looking for the most they can make and the two sides ultimately find a number in the middle that works for everyone. But that wasn’t the case for Dotson and the Rams, which just makes the relationship between them that much better.
The two sides were also able to come to this agreement before formal free agency began which, while not the most important thing for Dotson, was still something he preferred.
“I wouldn’t say it was a really important thing,” Dotson added. “It was just one of the things that I would rather have done. If I can get something done with the Rams, then I was ready to do that rather than have to do too many talks in the free agency market.”
Dotson’s preference was always to remain with the Rams as it allowed for continuity for himself, not to mention the Louisiana native really enjoys life in California.
“I think for me personally, it’s being able to come back to the same coach in the same system for two years in a row,” Dotson noted. “And then being in a place that’s actually really enjoyable to be in outside of football also. A big selling point for me was how I felt day to day in California.”
Both the Rams and Dotson are happy he will remain with the franchise going forward and now they can focus on improving and being at their best for next season.
Kevin Dotson calls contract extension with Rams ‘really fulfilling’
When two sides both want the same thing, it leads to much better and easier negotiations. Dotson wanted to remain with the Rams and the franchise wanted to keep him and ultimately led to a fulfilling result for the lineman.
“It was great,” Dotson said. “It was really fulfilling to be able to set my mind on something, find the plan of attack and be able to really go through with it. It felt great, man. It just feels like I came in there with a mission and I was able to check all the boxes even more than I even believed I was going to. So it definitely felt good.”
