McVay also said Jones was behind on their scheme install due to missing time from the knee. So if the Rams thought he was milking that injury out and wasn't all-in mentally due to his contract status, that is reason to move the player. We will never know of course, unless someday one of the Rams brain trust come out with it. But they're not stupid. They're not gonna move Jones unless they are feeling like the dropoff vs BS factor is close enough to say fuck it.
I also think they were impressed by Speights, and possibly Hummel as well, given how well they played in preseason. The problem was they didn't stop to think that their plan to play Reeder and Rozeboom for so many games might blow up in their faces, which it certainly has.
For myself I won't say this is a mistake until I get a load of Speights in a few games this season. Because if the plan was to work him in anyway, due to Jones leaving in FA and his knee issues and lesser range, then the trade makes more sense. If Speights comes in and looks like he doesn't have a future then yeah this will go down as a big mistake of a trade. But sometimes the players make the trades possible and we don't know what happened behind the scenes.