17-0, baby.

zn wrote:

Pick up a loose ball in the end zone on a two-point conversion try on a Thursday night the week before Christmas, and it might well have been the Rams holding up the Lombardi Trophy six weeks later instead of their division rivals.

Also known as the Zooey Whathisface Hypothesis.

I don’t know how the Rams survive without the help of Tutu Austin von Canidate.

Rams mailbag: What drove GM Les Snead’s draft approach? Is A.J. Brown still a possibility?

By Nate Atkins
May 7, 2026 4:01 am PDT

The Los Angeles Rams were the talk of the NFL after this year’s draft. And that makes it a good time for another mailbag.

The Rams threw a few curveballs in the draft, first by taking Alabama’s Ty Simpson at No. 13 to sit behind Matthew Stafford as the quarterback of the future. Then, by selecting just five players in the class, with a heavy focus on depth and future needs.

It was an interesting approach to take in a year with Super Bowl goals. But the Rams still have the highest odds to win next year’s title.

With so much to discuss about the present and future, let’s get to it.

(Note: Questions have been edited for length and clarity.)

Can you explain what the heck Les Snead was thinking with that draft class? Why did he select Simpson with the 13th pick when there were clearly other needs? Does he know something about Stafford that we don’t? Not to mention that the rest of our picks were pretty bad as well. — Andrew S.

This Rams draft can be explained by three philosophies:

• Los Angeles generally sees free agency and trades as the way to address needs, whereas the draft is for depth and improving the talent base for future seasons.

• This team did not see itself as having any pressing needs entering the draft.

• The Rams did not see this as a particularly strong draft.

Had they seen a player at No. 13 as the missing piece to a Super Bowl, they likely would have pulled the trigger. They just didn’t get there with USC’s Makai Lemon or Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq at the positions they played. They did spend a second-round pick on tight end Max Klare, so it’s worth scrutinizing that idea a little. But Klare is more of a future pick than a present one, with the chance that Tyler Higbee, Colby Parkinson and Davis Allen are off the team next year.

They’d rather get the growth process underway for a slow-developing position now than start it next year and expect that player to be a No. 2 option. Especially when this tight end class was as loaded as it was in the second round.

The Rams saw this year’s first round as a two-player haul, with the first being All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie. Because they added McDuffie via trade and signed his Kansas City Chiefs running mate, Jaylen Watson, to be their other outside cornerback, they believed they made the swing to address their biggest need. After that move, they saw the No. 13 pick as a bonus from the Atlanta Falcons. To them, that pick justified answering the quarterback question a year early rather than a year late.

I understand the logic. Not many franchises have the luxury of stashing a first-round quarterback and still being the odds-on favorite to win the Super Bowl. A backup quarterback was also a need they rated highly, with the time off Stafford needs in the summer to manage his degenerative back issue, plus the injury risk to a pocket quarterback who is 38 years old.

What still puzzles me is what made Simpson the player. The Rams have been muted on the topic out of respect for Stafford, even though he has no reason to fear Simpson threatening his job after an MVP season. The Rams like Simpson’s hunger and ability to learn, and they’ve hinted that his processing and mobility are key traits.

But every other team that has tried this model of stashing a first-round pick behind an incumbent — be it the Green Bay Packers with Aaron Rodgers behind Brett Favre, the Packers again with Jordan Love behind Rodgers, or the Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes behind Alex Smith — has done so to chase a future ceiling of special playmaking traits.

The success of the class hinges on how Simpson pans out, how much he plays on a rookie deal and whether the Rams can still win a Super Bowl while waiting on him. It can go a lot of ways.

The rest of the class was depth-focused, involving older and more experienced prospects. Missouri’s Keagen Trost can answer a couple of backup spots on the offensive line, Miami’s CJ Daniels can bring blocking and contested catches to the receiver room, and Alabama’s Tim Keenan III can offer snaps to take a load off Poona Ford.

Klare was the other upside pick, as the Rams envision a world where he and Terrance Ferguson stress defenses in personnel and matchups and lessen the need for wide receivers to be the engine, with Puka Nacua and Davante Adams entering contract years.

Have you heard anything about trades they may still pursue? The A.J. Brown speculation seems to have kicked up again. Any smoke there? — Kevin J.

One of the key reasons the Rams decided to take a quarterback in the first round rather than wait until next year, a team source explained, is that they don’t want to have to protect their 2027 draft picks in trades as they make this Super Bowl push. This team is always hunting for upgrades, so when a player it could use is on the trade block, it’s safe to assume the Rams will at least have conversations about it.

They had those about Brown, and they got fairly serious as the Rams explored a low-salary No. 1 receiver to own for the next four seasons. That salary benefit held more power in a pre-June 1 trade, and now Brown is headed for a post-June 1 trade. Additionally, the Rams decided they did not want to move off Adams just yet, thanks to the red zone cheat code he provided Stafford with 14 touchdowns in 14 games. They chose the present over the future here.

I’m hearing that discussions are over at this point. I never say never with the Rams and potential big moves, but the expectation in league circles for some time has been that Brown will wind up with the New England Patriots.

Other players who hit the trade block will be worth a look. It’s quieter right now, with a name such as Kayshon Boutte of the Patriots out there. That calculus will change come the trade deadline in October, when some struggling teams will look to cut their losses and plan for the future. That’s the window the Rams are likely gearing up for, as the time between now and then will also bring their needs more into focus — such as the third wide receiver spot.

It’ll be interesting to see if they’re willing to make a move for a receiver at that point if Adams and Nacua are healthy and playing great, as the biggest need is probably to protect against either going down, and that can’t happen much after the trade deadline passes.

I’d also keep an eye on Maxx Crosby. He seems to have mended things with the Las Vegas Raiders after the trade to the Baltimore Ravens was reversed, but the organization’s approach could change if the Raiders hit another tough start to a season.

The Rams want to be one of the rare teams willing to trade from an expectedly loaded 2027 draft class, with the idea that they’ll be picking at the very end of the first round. But those conversations are more likely in October than they are right now.

Can you break down the battle for WR3 between Jordan Whittington, Konata Mumpfield, Xavier Smith and CJ Daniels, and go over why each candidate might win it? — Jim E.

This will be the Rams’ liveliest battle in training camp. Los Angeles had a chance to make it a non-battle if it had taken a wide receiver in the first two rounds. But after selecting Simpson at No. 13, the board didn’t fall the way the Rams wanted on Day 3. So they turned three picks into one to move up in the sixth round to take Daniels.

That move up says something about what they see in him, and their track record on later-round receiver picks is strong. But it’s also worth noting that the list of hits includes players like Cooper Kupp and Nacua, who were taken before Daniels, whom they took just one round before Mumpfield last year.

I see Daniels, Mumpfield and Whittington entering camp in a dead heat. Each has a different case to offer coming in: Daniels is the new piece who can’t be held to last year’s depth failures down the stretch. Mumpfield is coming off a learning season and has the highest upside as a playmaker. Whittington is the most proven blocker and will need a game day role for what he offers on special teams, which can move the needle on this spot.

Smith is a return-focused player, and he probably won’t see as much of an offensive role.

Blocking will be a gigantic focus of this role. It was the top reason Tutu Atwell didn’t see the field much last season despite signing a one-year, $10 million deal. The Rams decreased their usage of a third receiver by moving to three-tight-end sets, and they are leaning more into that approach after bringing back Higbee and adding Klare in the draft.

They will want to live in 11 personnel with three wide receivers at times, especially to motion Nacua into the slot to create better matchups. But that player needs to be able to block so this team can continue to blur the lines between the run and pass in those sets to unlock the best in Stafford, as well as the Kyren Williams-Blake Corum backfield.

I see it as Whittington having the highest floor, Mumpfield having the highest ceiling, and Daniels having the best balance between blocking and receiving skills. The Rams will probably lean into that balanced skill set if it hits, because a threat to catch or block on a given snap fits the blurred approach they’re looking for.

https://fb.watch/GQsMX3WaAb/

At the end of that vid above they had a chart with Rams draft grades from 24 sports-expert-sites:
Out of the 24 grades, two were F’s, and nine were D’s. Nine were C’s. Four B’s. One A.

Only the Jags got lower grades.

w
v

All these analysts keep reciting that the Rams were *this* close to winning the Super Bowl last year, and then they drafted Ty Simpson who won’t help get them over the hump.

But almost all of them neglect to consider that the Rams, with the 29th pick, got McDuffie, and signed Watson as a FA, and they ALREADY made a significant upgrade where they needed to before the draft even started. AND all these aholes are grumbling about the Rams draft while conceding that the Rams are STILL the #1 pick to win it all this year.

They are analyzing the draft as if the McDuffie/Watson thing never happened.

This is the problem with national media. They simply can’t cover it all, and so all of their assessments suffer from that shallowness of understanding and context. We have seen this again, and again, and again, and again over the past 28 years.

We know more about the Rams than the “experts” do. Most of these people don’t know the Rams any better than they know the Bengals or Texans or Dolphins. “Ty Simpson was a ‘reach.’ We had him slotted late first, early second.” That’s all they know. These are people who saw Havenstein retire, and decided the Rams needed to draft OT because they never heard of McClendon.

The Rams didn’t need Lemon to beat the Seahawks. They needed McDuffie and Watson.

Simpson is about beating the Seahawks 3 years from now.

InvaderRam wrote:

i would have chosen sadiq.

I think I was leaning slightly to Sadiq. But part of that was that I was imagining what McVay would do with him. Lemon seemed okay to me, but he said/did something pre-draft that seemed kinda like a red flag problem child thing. I don’t remember what it was, though.

As the draft got closer to #13 and people were talking about Bain, I thought he might be okay, too. Then you have Byron Young’s replacement.

I’ll be interested to see Simpson, though. The first mobile Rams QB since the legendary T.J. Rubley (who mostly ran backwards).

zn wrote:

Syracuse TE Dan Villari
Played TE, QB and RB at Syracuse

Villari was primarily a tight end at Syracuse, but he also took snaps at quarterback. He rushed 84 times for 410 yards and four touchdowns, completed 23 of 33 passes for 177 yards with one touchdown and two picks, and also caught 66 passes for 671 yards and three touchdowns in four years.

The Shohei Ohtani of college football.

zn wrote:

Sigmund Bloom@SigmundBloom
Rams gave up 3 of their 4 remaining picks to get him in the 6th

they did not have a 4th or 5th round pick

im guessing they had him rated higher than a 6th round pick

At first, I thought giving up 3 7th rounders was a lot to move up 10 spots, but I read somewhere that the 6th and 7th rounds were thinner than usual this year due to NIL, and that was one of the things that made it hard for the Rams to trade down in the 1st – the extra late picks did not have the same value as usual.

So they dumped the picks in exchange for a WR they thought had MUCH higher value, and got all the UDFAs anyway.

zn wrote:

“It was just straight football. And it was like a kid in a candy store,” Simpson said. “Me and him are sitting there, and we’re just going back and forth. You can tell the obsession he has for the game, and you can tell the love he has for quarterback play.

“It’s something that I appreciate, and it’s something that I enjoy because I really enjoy playing the position and value the position. So, being with him and then getting to know him and then just seeing a little bit of how I would get coached if I was fortunate enough to go there was something that I couldn’t have asked for a better situation.”

Given the way McVay put together film for Adams and what we know about his compulsiveness (and memory) from Hard Knocks, it’s really kinda inconceivable that McVay wouldn’t have spent hours with a prospective QB to find out if he was going to track mentally or not. It feels silly to have believed them when they said McVay had NEVER MET Simpson. As if he’s going to take a QB in that spot based on film alone. These guys are waaaay too thorough for that kinda shit, and it’s hard to believe I fell for that lie. I believed the Rams when they said that because it goes along with not attending the combine and not having all the visits. Now Snead is confessing they met with 66 potential draft picks. It’s smart that they don’t want anybody to know whom they’re talking to, but I’m never falling for that crap again. These guys KNOW whom they’re drafting.

zn wrote:

My own take? Some things about him point to a “mid-level guy.” But some things point to him being more than that.

Football IQ plus fast processing under fire plus accuracy plus very good feet/movement plus toughness (he had a terrible OL at Alabama)…plus intangibles.

That is where I’m landing, too. I think that all the Positives I’m reading about him are more important that the Negatives.

Size and Experience are important. But not as important as mental processing and ability to make throws, and make plays off script. Plus he seems to be a football nerd who pounds the film room.

And Simpson seems to be stronger on those latter things.

So I’ll take him over Ryan Leaf.

Mid-level seems to me to be a Floor, not a ceiling. But Time Will Tell.

zn wrote:

, traded 3 picks just to move up 10 spots to land this guy in the 6th round.

That’s how much they wanted him.

Yep, that struck me on draft day. They gave up 3 picks to move up ten spots. That is remarkable.

This guy is my favorite pick atm.

zn wrote:

It ended on Thursday, after McVay apprised Stafford of the plan, and the Rams pushed the button on the night’s biggest surprise.

Conspiracy Theory #4: Matthew Stafford was pissed. Especially since Simpson ripped up Georgia. And he raised his voice at McVay.

And that’s what we saw.