Heading into the 2020 NFL Draft, fans were calling for the Rams to address their offensive line early, hoping the team would prioritize its biggest weakness from 2019. Yet, it was the very last position the Rams targeted in the draft, selecting Tremayne Anchrum with their final pick in the seventh round.
There’s no doubt the biggest question fans have after the draft is, why didn’t the Rams make the offensive line a top priority? After seeing how shaky the protection for Jared Goff was last year, and how few holes were opened up for Todd Gurley, it seemed impossible for the Rams to pass on the top linemen until Round 7.
Their decision to essentially ignore the offensive line until the end of the draft says two things: They didn’t like the players that were available at each draft slot, and they’re confident in their current group of blockers.
Les Snead made that abundantly clear after the draft wrapped up, saying there’s no doubt the team likes its offensive line heading into the 2020 season.
“Definitely, that’s obvious, because we didn’t address OL until later,” Snead said. “But I think Sean’s mentioned it, we’ve been drafting young players for the last two, three years. Even when Sean mentioned yesterday trading for Austin Corbett, it was just a couple years ago that he was the 33rd pick in the draft and even this year we wouldn’t have been able to pick an Austin Corbett.”
Corbett is the wild card in all of this, because he does have the draft pedigree of a former second-round pick out of Nevada. He’s someone the Rams really liked in 2018 and feel fortunate to have on the roster.
But he’s not the only one the Rams like. Snead also mentioned David Edwards and Bobby Evans as players who gained valuable experience last season due to injuries suffered by other players.
“We’ve been adding those players and I’ve said it many times: Fortunately or unfortunately, a lot of them got to play last year with David Edwards and Bobby Evans, in particular, that got a chance to play when you really were going to spend a year probably developing them as backups,” Snead said. “They came in, performed well and then the guys that they replaced are getting healthier. So, we did go into it probably a little different than maybe the outside of our building where, ‘OK, hey, it’s a major, major glaring weakness the Rams offensive line.’ We felt confident that if we continue grooming and developing these players they’d have a chance to become a really solid offensive line.”
On one hand, Snead has a point. The team has been drafting and adding linemen for years, and at some point, you have to bet on them to come in and succeed in starting roles. That includes Joseph Noteboom, Brian Allen, Edwards, Evans and Corbett.
On the other hand, the Rams tried to give Noteboom and Allen a shot last season, and they failed. Though their season-ending injuries were no fault of their own, the way they played before getting hurt was. Noteboom didn’t show the power and play strength to hold up at guard, getting pushed back by defenders far too often. It was a similar story with Allen, who fell in the lap of Goff too many times. He was always viewed as an undersized center, which was a concern when he was drafted in the third round, but he played bigger than his size in college. That just didn’t hold true last season.
Would adding a fourth-round rookie to the logjam of guards and centers really have benefitted the Rams in 2020? Maybe not. After all, who’s to say a fourth-round pick would’ve performed better than Noteboom, Allen or Corbett, who were all drafted earlier?
But on the flip side, if those three players have all failed to make an impact in two seasons, why should the Rams be confident they’ll suddenly turn things around in 2020? You could argue that none of them were given fair shakes last season due to limited playing time, starting a combined 22 games between the three of them. But when they were on the field, none of them stood out as surefire starters for next season.
Corbett was the best of the bunch, and even he had four penalties, one sack allowed and an overall grade of 51.8, according to Pro Football Focus.
Of course, Noteboom, Allen and Corbett aren’t the only young linemen the team is counting on. Edwards and Evans are also in the mix after playing relatively well in limited action last season. Evans may be given a chance to beat out Rob Havenstein at right tackle, and Edwards could start at guard if Austin Blythe is needed at center.
The benefit of having such a versatile offensive line is that the combinations are almost endless. Here’s a sampling of potential starting lineups along the offensive line for L.A. in 2020, from left to right:
- Whitworth, Corbett, Blythe, Edwards, Havenstein
- Whitworth, Corbett, Allen, Blythe, Evans
- Whitworth, Noteboom, Allen, Edwards, Havenstein
- Whitworth, Noteboom, Blythe, Corbett, Evans
- Whitworth, Corbett, Allen, Edwards, Havenstein
Get the point? Only Andrew Whitworth is a lock to start next season, with the other four spots completely up in the air. The Rams have seven players who could conceivably start somewhere on the offensive line, and that doesn’t even include rookie Tremayne Anchrum or Jamil Demby.
Depth isn’t the problem with the O-line, it’s the top-level talent. And for that reason, adding another body from the fourth round or later probably wouldn’t have solved the blocking issues up front.
But the Rams had a chance to draft players such as Damien Lewis, Matt Hennessy and Lloyd Cushenberry at No. 57 overall, all of whom would’ve had a decent chance to start in Week 1. They instead took a running back and wide receiver who probably won’t play more than half of the offensive snaps as rookies.
That’s where questioning the decision to all but ignore the offensive line is warranted – and it’s why the offense as a whole may not improve much next season.
[vertical-gallery id=631825]