The Rams are a team that should be building through the draft, but this trade is not going to help them do so.
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The Rams acquired the No. 1 overall pick from the Tennessee Titans, giving up six draft picks over the next two seasons in exchange for three choices.
The Rams are expected to draft a quarterback, with North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz and Cal’s Jared Goff in consideration. It’s all but a sure thing that the Rams are targeting a quarterback with the top slot, despite their protestations that Case Keenum is their man. Tennessee also gets the Rams’ first- and third-round picks in the 2017 draft.
Both have already worked out for the Rams who have two weeks to dive deeper into the tape of the quarterbacks and discuss with the rest of their war room who should be the first pick.
Drafting Mariota last year gave the Titans the freedom to trade down and not take a quarterback this year.
The draft-shaking trade also impacts the Cleveland Browns, who have the No. 2 overall pick and have their sights set on landing a quarterback after more than a decade of futility.
“I was surprised, but knowing the organization I’m not surprised”, Jones said. Through a series of spinoff trades that followed, the trade brought the Rams eight players overall. The Colts still selected Elway with the first overall pick before trading him to the Denver Broncos a week later. And they are another quarterback-hungry team after finally parting ways with embattled signal-caller Johnny Manziel earlier this offseason. Instead of getting a boatload of picks from another team, they’ve given up an equally impressive boatload to the Titans. But if it’s the Rams, of note, they play their last preseason game this fall at the Minnesota Vikings, who will be playing in their new U.S. Bank Stadium.
The last such player to come from the FCS level, or lower, was in 1974 when the Dallas Cowboys selected defensive end Ed “Too Tall” Jones out of Tennessee State.
Paxton Lynch: Lynch’s draft stock may have fallen hard with this trade.
“Obviously, we did the research”, Rams coach Jeff Fisher said.
The Rams “earned” the No. 15 overall pick by virtue of their 7-9 record, which was capped by a 19-16 overtime loss to San Francisco in the regular-season finale. It’s like a play call sheet.
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Even should Los Angeles take Wentz off the board, the 49ers won’t likely be able to realize their goal of bringing the Bay Area kid-Jared Goff-to the team. “We now have the ammunition to work the draft and acquire players that are good for this football team”. Now, they could easily make the argument that their QB wasn’t available, so they made a decision to move back and accumulate picks.
