The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Hill comes out winner in trade with Browns
Troy Hill appreciates the Rams more the second time around.
The cornerback left the Rams as a free agent before the 2021 season to sign a two-year, $9 million contract with the Cleveland Browns. The Rams won the Super Bowl without him. The Browns still haven’t been to a Super Bowl.
“I feel like I learned a lot as far as what it takes to be a winner. You kind of take everything for granted,” Hill said Monday. “I enjoyed my time (in Cleveland), just the people and everything. But it’s nothing comparable to L.A. and the (Rams) organization.
“As you can see, this is a winning organization.”
Hill, 30, a former St. Bonaventure High (Ventura) star who played five seasons for the Rams from 2016-2020, was re-acquired on Saturday in a trade that sent the Rams’ fifth-round draft pick in 2023 to the Browns.
He says the circumstances leave him with “a chip on my shoulder.”
“I was already motivated from last season,” Hill said. “But just me being traded, and especially for a fifth-round pick, I feel disrespected. I’m motivated to come out and show I can do it and prove people wrong.”
So it’s the perfect trade.
It provides more emotional fuel for a player who has had to fight for his place in the NFL after going undrafted despite leading the NCAA in passes defended with 18 as an Oregon senior in 2014. And it brings him back to the Rams and their winning culture.
Hill admits he felt mixed emotions watching the Rams win the Super Bowl in the one season he was away.
“It was cool being able to see everybody enjoy that moment. I was happy for them, just knowing all the work they put in,” he said. “But it was a little tough on the other end, too. It’s always that wouldacoulda-shoulda type thing.”
With the Browns, he talked with fellow ex-ram John Johnson about the difference between the franchises, including the way they felt the Rams took care of players.
“I always found myself trying to compare things to how it was done over here in L.A.,” Hill said. “I don’t know if it was me trying to compare (the Browns) to ‘this is what a winning program does,’ or if I was just missing everything that was happening over here.”
Playing 12 games and starting four in 2021 for the 8-9 Browns, Hill fell far short of matching his 2020 season with the Rams in which he led the NFL in non-offensive touchdowns by returning two interceptions and one fumble.
“He’s a guy that played really good football for us, especially in the first year we were running a version of this (defensive) system,” Rams coach Sean Mcvay said Saturday, noting Hill’s “production, the position flex, ability to play that nickel, that ‘star’ position, be able to play outside.”
Hill will rejoin All-pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey and a secondary that added 2021 draft pick Robert Rochell while he was away and four players via the draft last week.
“Whatever my role is,” Hill said, “I’m ready to come out there and perform.”
‘I’ve grown’
Derion Kendrick, the Georgia cornerback the Rams drafted in the sixth round (212th pick) on Saturday, said he has put the trouble during his college career behind him.
Kendrick played on national championship teams as a freshman at Clemson and a senior at Georgia. He was dismissed by Clemson in February 2021 for team rule violations. He was arrested that March for gun and marijuana possession.
“It’s really over with. It’s in the past. You can’t go back and change it,” Kendrick said Monday in a Zoom call with L.A. reporters. “I’ve grown from it. It’s not going to be a problem again.
“Everybody has things that they’ve got to work on. That’s what I had to work on, communication and also maturing.”