I have always thought very highly of William Hayes. His contract is very easy of the Rams CAP pocketbook. I will agree with Memphis here when you consider all things great & small between the two DE's (Long & Hayes) Hayes is the better bargain. WH can play & has played all four DL positions & has proven to be effective no matter where Fisher inserts him! Long is strictly a LDE period. Yes you can play CL inside but WH is much better. WH happens to be one of those rare players who does nothing great but does everything generally good. A team would be in a great position to have a half dozen signed William Hayes's!
The only knock I can come up with on WH is he comes in each season a bit over his playing weight & less in ideal playing shape.
Yeah, Hayes is fantastic. Hard not to love him, and everybody in the locker room has amazing things to say about him. Best bargain DE in the league. Think we have 3 of the top 15 (maybe top 10) defensive ends in the league.
2 things I want to say though: Hayes plays the run great. He's a top 3 run defender in the league at 4-3 DE. We have another top 5 run defender in Quinn too, which is great. So Hayes does everything else well, but he is one of the best run defenders. Even if that's all he did, he'd be a bargain.
The other thing: Yeah, Hayes is a big big man. I don't know if he can play the amount of snaps Long can. It's tough to handle that many snaps, which is why he's perfect in the role that he is.