do people agree with this? my sense of how the Rams GM leads during the draft

First, everything everyone says about this is based on a combination of what they say about themselves, and the occasional tidbits we get from outsiders who have some info. That stuff accumulates. In other words, we all have access to the exact same info. Where people get into differences is how we interpret all that evidence. Sometimes there’s not agreement on how to interpret it.

So everything I say is based on how I interpret all the evidence out there.

1. As opposed to before, when the more experienced Fisher had final say, now, the more experienced (than McVay) Snead has final say. But that doesn’t make him an Overlord style GM. Snead himself had directly addressed this. He said yes I have final say but my goal (and I am paraphrasing) is to get the coaches the kinds of players they want. In short, he is not imposing things–he’s not going into draft rooms and saying things like (and this is a made-up for instance) “well you guys are looking at receiver for the top pick but we’re going to take a CB, which in my view is the greater need.”

2. Just in general,leadership does not always mean dictating. I often see some posters around the net get wrapped up in the “accountibility” issue but to me that is overblown. The front office knows full well that if they’re drafts are not panning out, it ultimately goes to the GM…how could they not know that??! They don’t sit around wrangling over mysterious accountibility issues. That’s a given. So with that in mind, yeah, leadership can take many forms, and one form leadership takes is to foster collaboration and consensus. Snead says he spends time finding out what these coaches want in players, and the coaches are involved in the process. Doesn’t mean they don’t listen to him. It just means it’s more flexible then a strict “I am the boss and we do it this way” approach.

3. A lot of it has to do with how the Rams stack their board. The scouts, led by Snead, do not simply do that on their own and then hand the results to the coaches. It is collaborative. The coaches are part of the process of ranking. I suppose crudely speaking it gets down to this—the scouts scout for 12 months and so know more about the draft candidates, but the coaches know more about the kinds of players they need and like. You cannot balance that with one conversation, it;s a process, and takes work and time. Plus the coaches are in on interviews and draw on their own experience in the league to determine what those interviews tell them. So setting up a ranked board is absolutely a collaborative process. Unless the GM just wants to dictate to the coach (and clearly Snead doesn’t) it has to be a collaborative process. Any debate or give and take has to take place at the point–setting up the board.

4. Once the board is done it sets up everything. (Not saying the board is set in stone at that point, it can be jiggled a bit, but mostly it is set.) The Rams as a group then have a sense of what the value is at any given pick, according to their own views of the players. They stick to the board though that’s not a narrow, restrictive thing. The way the the Rams have talked about it before, when it’s their turn they have a short list of players who are worthy of that spot. It’s not strict need drafting and it’s not strict BPA drafting, it’s a combination of value and fit—who’s a fit, where’s the value. They can then be flexible to an extent when it’s time to pick. Sometimes they have a particular guy in mind (in 2014, they had in place a trade to move up for Martin, but then Dallas took him ahead of Baltimore’s pick so the trade didn’t go through). Sometimes they have to weigh a couple of options.

5. The coaches tend to have more direct say and input when it’s a higher pick. They don’t scout enough to have the same firm sense of things when it’s round 5. Then they need to defer more to scouts and the GM who just plain know more. As someone once said, coaches scout for a month out of the year, scouts scout for 12 months.

Well there’s more cause it’s a big issue but that will do for now.