team needs

There will be different views of this but here’s mine.

OL?

The OL will take care of itself. The Rams had 2 holdover vet linemen (Saffold and Barnes) and in the last 2 years brought in 12 more linemen, including rookies in 2014 and 2015, and then some re-cycled vets in 2015 (and the Rams have a history of making something out of that type).

The problem with the OL is (1) it was as young and inexperienced an OL as we have ever heard of and those will struggle, and (2) it got injured on top of it.

That means you cannot take the 2015 OL performance and draw any conclusions from it. Those who are doing so are just being premature about it….it’s too soon to know.

I mean think about it. In the last 2 years, they added 5 tackles (Robinson, Havenstein, Williams, Battle, and Donnal), a guard/tackle swingman (Reynolds), 3 center/guards (Rhaney, Kush, Folkerts), and 3 pure guards (Brown, Wichman, Arkin). That’s a lot. It;s more than the normal in-season OL roster, which is usually 9 to 10 players…and that’s before counting Barnes and Saffold.

No one not on the team could possibly know which of those guys are going to make it out of training camp on to the roster next year.

QB & WR

The issue is qb 1st and WR 2nd. On qb, they have Foles, who has played better before now…there was nothing in 2014 that was like the meltdown he had in the last 4 games. So it is at least possible, on paper, that he recovers his game. One thing to remember about Foles—his entire career, he has not taken this many snaps under center, so in a very important sense he is still learning how to play like an NFL dropback qb and not like a spread shotgun qb. So in a lot of ways he’s still getting it together. But then you don’t count on that happening, so you bring in a qb—a rookie, a vet, doesn’t matter. Whatever works.

In terms of WR, they are not as bad as the qb situation makes it look, but they benefit from improving that anyway.

DE

Problem is there’s another need as big as any of those—DE. Both Sims and Hayes are FAs in 2016, and both Long and Quinn were hurt this year. This team wins when the DL puts pressure on the opposing offense, and that’s harder to do without a DE.

Picks

Fortunately, they have 3 picks in the first 2 rounds.

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