Without No. 1 draft pick again, it wouldn’t be a first for Rams to find later-round gems
The first day of the NFL draft almost certainly will be another quiet one for the Rams. For the fifth consecutive year, they do not have a first-round pick.
Not that general manager Les Snead sounds concerned.
Snead, never shy about making draft-day trades, joked that he might explore a big one when the three-day, seven-round draft begins Thursday in Cleveland.
“I hear there’s a few picks for sale,” he said. “The [Atlanta] Falcons and maybe we move up to four? See what happens.”
Snead is more likely to begin dealing Friday when the second and third rounds commence. Rounds 4 through 7 will be held Saturday.
The Rams enter the draft with pick No. 57 in the second round, No. 88 and No. 103 in the third, 141 in the fourth, 209 in the sixth and 252 in the seventh.
Beneath its polished exterior, the NFL draft can often be a confusing time for team executives and players. Here are some amusing stories from past drafts.
If a player the Rams really want is there to be taken, Snead said new defensive coordinator Raheem Morris has termed them as a “pool party grade.”
“There’s a few players that maybe, as Raheem termed it, we’d have a pool party, if they fell and we were able to grab them,” said Snead, who will conduct the draft from a Malibu house with an infinity pool.
During coach Sean McVay’s four seasons, the Rams found several productive players in Rounds 2 through 7. Some — including tight end Gerald Everett, safety John Johnson, receiver Josh Reynolds and linebacker Samson Ebukam — moved on as free agents this offseason.
The Rams drafted Everett, safety Taylor Rapp, running back Cam Akers and receiver Van Jefferson in the second round. They found Johnson, receiver Cooper Kupp and offensive linemen Joe Noteboom and Bobby Evans in the third. Ebukam, Reynolds and defensive lineman Greg Gaines were fourth-round picks. Linebacker Micah Kiser and offensive lineman David Edwards were fifth-round picks, and defensive lineman Sebastian Joseph-Day and safety Jordan Fuller sixth-round picks.
The Rams gave up their first-round pick this year as part of the 2019 trade that netted All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey. They sent their first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 — and quarterback Jared Goff — to the Detroit Lions in exchange for quarterback Matthew Stafford.
Examining the addition of Matthew Stafford and the Rams’ quarterback situation ahead of the NFL draft.
Snead and the Rams’ scouting department have spent months before, during and after a college football season affected by the pandemic evaluating prospects. Those evaluations were made without the benefit of the NFL scouting combine, which was canceled, and without attending most pro day workouts on college campuses.
In addition, Brad Holmes, the Rams’ director of college scouting the last eight years, left in January to become the Detroit Lions’ general manager.
But there was still plenty of video for area scouts and senior personnel to dissect and evaluate.
“It’s kind of the next best thing,” national scout Marty Barrett said. “It may not be right there in front of you in living color but it’s still workable, still efficient. ... you can always pull back and watch [2018] or ’19. Sometimes, the well is as deep as you want to go.”
Taylor Morton, senior personnel advisor, said the Rams scouting department began conducting virtual meetings in 2019, so last year’s draft and this year’s run-up were not a major shift for the staff.
The preponderance of available video of players also required less travel by area scouts to college campuses.
The competition seems to be on the rise in the NFC West as the Rams, Cardinals, 49ers and Seahawks make changes ahead of the NFL draft.
“Used to be, we had to show up at 7 a.m. at the school to get it in the film room, grind tape all day and fight over the remote control with the other teams,” Morton said, laughing. “Where now, it’s all on your laptop or your iPad.
“That’s probably 90% of the evaluation: The player’s resumé is what he puts on tape.”
However, Morton, Barrett and Ted Monago, the Rams assistant director of college scouting, said that seeing players in person affords scouts up-close evaluation of body type, demeanor at practice and how a player responds to adversity in games.
“You can’t take the person out of personnel,” Morton said.
The incorporation of advanced analytics into the evaluation process also has benefited Rams scouts, Monago said, giving them an additional resource.
“Kind of like another app on your phone,” he said. “But it always comes down to: A productive player is a person and how the person grows in their role. Because there’s still that human element to it.”
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