how do you “grade” this draft? or just…what do you make of this draft

This topic has 23 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 6 months ago by Zooey.

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May 1, 2021 at 7:02 pm #129470

JackPMiller
Participant

This was a D draft.
Drafting no OLinemen
We drafted 3 WRs
Also, we drafted a RB.

I wonder how many games Stafford will play? And how many games he will miss behind our OLine.

May 1, 2021 at 7:06 pm #129472

TSRF
Participant

Jack, although it looks like a head scratcher to us, we really won’t be able to grade this for three or four years.

If you asked me what I thought the day after we drafted Aaron Donald, I think I would have said he was an under-sized DL who will quickly be out of the league…

Just saying.

May 1, 2021 at 7:07 pm #129473

TSRF
Participant

Let’s see who they pick up now.

May 1, 2021 at 7:31 pm #129482

JackPMiller
Participant

I still see Ben Skowronek on another teams roster. Funk has had two ACL tears in college. I have a hard time seeing him on a roster. Hell, Funk may get injured just putting on his uniform for the first Rams training camp.

May 1, 2021 at 7:52 pm #129493

Hram
Participant

I think the entire group will redshirt Although three or four may make the roster. The rest will be on the practice squad.

The Rams been trending this direction in the last couple of drafts.

One of the wide receivers will probably be converted to tight end and the other one may be converted to H-back or a large slot receiver. Either make play but it will probably be in two or three years unless one of them surprises on special teams.

Once they did not go oline by the fourth round, it kind of makes sense to not get one the rest of the draft. There should be lots of online men including lots of free agent centers who want to sign with the Rams at this point

May 1, 2021 at 11:55 pm #129536

PA Ram
Participant

I agree.

D.

The disregard for the offensive line in a deep draft at that position is mind-numbing.

Brown and Rochell are okay.

Worst looking draft in years.

Injured players in a year that was difficult to evaluate the health of players?

Tavon 2.0?

Time will tell of course. But I really hope the genius behind the Rams drafts is not sitting in Detroit.

This is just an initial reaction and would love to be wrong.

For now, I do not feel good about the draft.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick

May 2, 2021 at 12:05 am #129538

zn
Moderator

I agree with people saying that neglecting the OL is not a good thing.

But on the other side of the coin, this was, it looks like, a heavy special teams draft. That’s easy to see with Atwell (returner potential) and Jones (coverage potential). Here’s Snead & McVay on a few other different players (all from today’s transcript):

SNEAD

* Jacob Harris really played wide receiver at Central Florida and was probably our number one ranked special teamer, in terms of coverage, but he’s a fast guy that we project could go to tight end and just an interesting weapon based on the special teams and things like that

*Jake Funk, another guy that we had highly rated as a coverage player, for special teams he can return and so that’s a good thing.

* big (WR) Ben (Skowronek) … could project him being basically one of our better blockers on our team and a special teams projected.

* But what we did know is we had identified some guys with our personnel staff and Joe DeCamillis, our new special teams coach, the guys that could come in and hey, like a Jacob Harris, like Mr. Funk and some of those guys and ‘Big Ben’ and things like that that could help on teams too.

* Robert Rochell, it’s okay, if he’s our fourth corner this year, (Defensive Coordinator Raheem) Coach Morris was jacked to get ahold of him. … But Coach DeCamillis was also thumbs up on him as well because if you’re a fourth corner, what’s not a projection is him going down and maybe being a gunner and things like that.

MCVAY

* There’s a couple of guys that we felt like their value to our special teams unit was a really big asset.
…

May 2, 2021 at 10:02 am #129548

wv
Participant

Well, of course, no-one knows, but the first pick was astonishing.
155 Lbs. Just astonishing.

First thing i thought of was this:
————-
LA Times: “…The Rams’ success the last few seasons apparently made an impression on the Detroit Lions.

Ten days after the Lions hired former Rams college scouting director Brad Holmes as general manager, Holmes will hire Ray Agnew as assistant general manager, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

Agnew has been the Rams’ director of pro scouting the last four years….”
————

May 2, 2021 at 10:08 am #129549

Agamemnon
Participant

I question the first 2 picks.
.
The last 7 are OK, not great but OK.
.
So, they get 2 D’s and a bunch of C’s. The big guy was a B. The TE was a B.
.
The fact that they didn’t take advantage of a deep offensive line draft is a sin.

Agamemnon

May 2, 2021 at 12:10 pm #129553

InvaderRam
Moderator

if they had drafted meinerz instead of tutu i’m happy.

although i gotta say. i love that name tutu. my wish is that he put tutu on the back of his jersey. that would be cool as hell.

but maybe the rams not picking an olineman is a good sign? maybe that’s an indication of where the oline talent is on this team… or maybe it’s indicative of a serious blindspot for this rams’ organization. my hope is it’s the former.

but i like the jones pick. he’s not the fastest. but he’s explosive. and he seems to have the mental traits to be a leader. i think jordan fuller when i think jones. now this is just based on what i read. so take it for what it’s worth.

i love the bobby brown iii pick. absolutely love it. he’s 20 years old. 20. he is a baby. a huge lumbering baby who -if he figures it out – can mature to be a hulk. but physically he has it all. and it looks like maybe he was starting to figure it out his last year at school. i am not even exaggerating when i say that. physically he’s about as good as it gets.

robert rochell? again. physically he has it all. and i trust the rams when they pick defensive backs.

jacob harris i’m intrigued by. just as a wr prospect. again. athletically this guy has the movement skills of a small cornerback. i mean a 6.51 3-cone!!! what!? that crazy. but he’s 6’5″ 220 pounds! he’s got good length. not great. and the explosion! explosive athlete. about as good as it gets. but what i’m really intrigued by is talk about him being moved to tight end. if he could gain 20 pounds. and not lose too much of his athleticism. i’m intrigued by what he could do. he has a soccer background. didn’t play football until his senior year in high school. and last year could not have been ideal for his development. so he’s raw. he’s also on the older side. he’s 24. but in the fourth round why not take a gamble?

jake funk is also a pick i really liked. history in knee injuries. ok but he was picked in the seventh round. and akers is still the main running back. i think funk could be a decent backup.

but bobby brown iii. what a pick. that pick made my day. that’s the guy i’ll be following as the new season approaches. so excited.

May 2, 2021 at 3:55 pm #129562

InvaderRam
Moderator

just a little more about bobby brown.

6’4″ 321 pounds
34.75″ arms
10.5″ hands

not only is this guy big. he’s long. extremely long. so just in terms of physical size he is big in every sense of the word. he’s even got big mitts for hands to hold off blockers and push them to the side.

but then you got to the speed, agility, and explosion numbers.
40 – 4.98s
short shuttle – 4.63s
3-cone – 7.65s
vert – 33″
broad – 9’5″

there’s very few men who could put up the numbers brown put up at that size.

May 2, 2021 at 5:00 pm #129566

zn
Moderator

InvaderRam wrote:

but bobby brown iii. what a pick. that pick made my day. that’s the guy i’ll be following as the new season approaches. so excited.

InvaderRam wrote:

6’4″ 321 pounds
34.75″ arms
10.5″ hands

not only is this guy big. he’s long. extremely long. so just in terms of physical size he is big in every sense of the word. he’s even got big mitts for hands to hold off blockers and push them to the side.

but then you got to the speed, agility, and explosion numbers.
40 – 4.98s
short shuttle – 4.63s
3-cone – 7.65s
vert – 33″
broad – 9’5″

there’s very few men who could put up the numbers brown put up at that size.

If I recall Brown stood out immediately when they drafted him. We scrambled to find stuff about him and it was all very interesting.

Harris, btw, while he develops at TE, is a special teams coverage guy. Snead said he was their highest rated special teams coverage guy in this draft. I said it above but a lot of this draft was about fixing special teams.

May 2, 2021 at 8:32 pm #129572
Hram
Participant
The Tutu pick is growing on me.

The Rams have not had anyone who could stretch the field since cooks and they need that for this offense. They haven’t had anyone to run the jet suite effectively since Austin and they need that in this offense.

tutu cannot run as well as Austin but he is just as fast. He’s 20 pounds lighter than cooks but it looks like he has better hands and can track the ball in the air better. Plus supposedly he will fight for balls which was something cooks seldom did.

With him you get both these players for the price of one.

Supposedly he was already up to 160 on draft day so they could probably get him up to about 170 in which case he may be big enough to play a full season after Jackson departs particularly if it is only about a third to half the snaps on offense since they have three other good wide receivers and will probably also do some two TE sets.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Hram.
May 2, 2021 at 8:40 pm #129574

zn
Moderator

zn wrote:

If I recall Brown stood out immediately when they drafted him. We scrambled [in the chat] to find stuff about him and it was all very interesting

I’m assuming btw he’s a DE, not an NT. Brockers’s replacement. This is from something that got posted when he was picked:

…outstanding fundamentals. Fires off the snap, plays with excellent pad level, and draws the focus of opponents. Consistently gets leverage on blockers, shows agility, immediately alters his angle of attack, and redirects to the action. Moves well laterally chasing the play down the line of scrimmage. Aggressive. Tough to move off the point…. He boasts stellar upside and should only improve as he gets stronger with time.

May 2, 2021 at 9:42 pm #129580

Hram
Participant

I think he has some position versatility. Which is important if you are going to play with Donald. 🙂

May 2, 2021 at 9:50 pm #129581

InvaderRam
Moderator

zn wrote:

I’m assuming btw he’s a DE, not an NT. Brockers’s replacement.

he could play de. athletically he’s a cut above brockers. brockers has the size. but he doesn’t have the athletic ability that brown possesses. this guy is on the level of a calais campbell. jerry tillery. chris jones. deforest buckner. arik armstead.

i like the bit about his fundamentals. he just needs to be developed. and he needs to mature. again. this guy is still only 20 years old. just so much potential.

i also like what you posted about this being a special teams draft. if these guys can at least contribute on special teams, that’s good. but they also have the potential to develop into more.

May 2, 2021 at 10:00 pm #129582

InvaderRam
Moderator

and what’s amazing is he carries those 325 pounds so well. he doesn’t look pumped up. at the same time, he doesn’t look overweight. he’s just a solid 325 pounds. and he’s going to get stronger being only 20 years old. as long as he puts the work in.

a’shawn robinson i assume will be the nose tackle. aaron donald on the right. brown on the left.

and at least stat-wise he really seemed to make a jump forward his last year at school. so he’s going in the right direction. and henderson should be good for him. aaron donald should be good for him. although it’s too bad brockers is gone as he would have been a great mentor to brown as well.

May 2, 2021 at 10:04 pm #129583

zn
Moderator

InvaderRam wrote:

this guy is on the level of a calais campbell. jerry tillery. chris jones. deforest buckner. arik armstead.

InvaderRam wrote:

a’shawn robinson i assume will be the nose tackle. aaron donald on the right. brown on the left.

That’s amazingly high praise. If he ends up anywhere near the level of those guys, then, look the hell out. That would be fantastic.

I see it just a bit differently–I am assuming Robinson will be the 5-tech DE, with Brown as the understudy behind him, and that the NT will again be Joseph-Day. That actually has the potential to be a good DL.

If Brown pans out at the level predicted, we can call the Rams DL the theriomorphic threesome (theriomorphosis means to transform into a beast). I think it’s catchy.

…

May 2, 2021 at 10:33 pm #129584

InvaderRam
Moderator

zn wrote:

That’s amazingly high praise. If he ends up anywhere near the level of those guys, then, look the hell out. That would be fantastic.

well. i mean just in terms of athleticism. still up in the air if he can take all that potential and channel it into actual production.

but certainly i think his ceiling is that high.

May 3, 2021 at 10:35 am #129592

nittany ram
Moderator

Not sure what McSnead sees in the current o-line that would preclude adding more depth through the draft. There was nothing about the play of the o-line last season that said to me, “the o-line is perfect just as it is so let’s draft an undersized Tavon Austin clone instead.”

May 3, 2021 at 10:42 am #129593

Zooey
Moderator

I’ve been really busy, so I haven’t completed my homework. I sort of tracked the draft and gathered some of the immediate quick hits, and skimmed a couple of profiles here and there. So what your getting from me right now is basically the same immediate impressions from the moment. I haven’t even finished the meal, let alone had time to digest it.

So…all I got at this point is that I hated the Tutu pick because you don’t pick a gadget player until the Day Three of the draft. And given this guy’s size, I don’t see how he is ever anything but a gadget player. Seems to me his high side value is that he runs a jet for 10 or 12 yards once a game, and is used as a decoy to stretch the defense horizontally, opening holes for the “real” football players on the team. And maybe that has value, but I hate it at #57.

My other thought…zn got here two days before I did to say it…this just looks like a ST draft. Looks to me like the Rams looked at last year and concluded that they could have won it all if 1) they had better QB play, 2) they had a deep threat, and 3) special teams stopped sucking out loud.

And I think they are right about that, actually.

And everything they have done since the season ended has been to address those three weaknesses. This isn’t a draft building for the future. This is a draft to win the goddamn thing right now, this year, now.

That’s not the way I would have done it, but it looks to me like that’s what they did. And if they are right…and they win it all…then…yay!

May 3, 2021 at 8:04 pm #129631

InvaderRam
Moderator

Zooey wrote:

this just looks like a ST draft.

i understand the lower picks being used for special teams, but can the same be said for tutu?

what is his value in special teams? he really didn’t return kicks in college. so… what does that mean for the pros?

May 3, 2021 at 8:08 pm #129634

InvaderRam
Moderator

nittany ram wrote:

Not sure what McSnead sees in the current o-line that would preclude adding more depth through the draft. There was nothing about the play of the o-line last season that said to me, “the o-line is perfect just as it is so let’s draft an undersized Tavon Austin clone instead.”

yeah. i wanted to see oline or dline with that second rounder.

i feel good about every position i think except linebacker and oline at this point.

May 4, 2021 at 12:40 am #129646

Zooey
Moderator

InvaderRam wrote:

Zooey wrote:

this just looks like a ST draft.

i understand the lower picks being used for special teams, but can the same be said for tutu?

what is his value in special teams? he really didn’t return kicks in college. so… what does that mean for the pros?

He’s part of the “explosive plays” solution. They traded for Stafford to improve QB play. Drafted Tutu to provide explosion. Brown replaces Brockers. Harris replaces Everett. Everyone else is ST, and if they develop, then cool. But their immediate purpose is ST.
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