The Los Angeles Rams recently acquired interior offensive lineman Kevin Dotson from the Pittsburgh Steelers in a trade before roster cuts took place. With the Rams still trying to decipher who will start along the offensive line in Week 1, Les Snead spoke about how the trade for Dotson came to be.
“I think that it started with he’s been a starter in Pittsburgh,” Snead said. “They drafted a good bit of OL. They signed some in unrestricted free agency so you did know that they had a surplus of OL who had played in NFL games and with the draftees coming in, they were a team that we targeted initially to monitor if we ever wanted to go in that direction. And then obviously you turn on the tape, you play the Pittsburgh (Steelers), they’re a fun team to watch. Their linemen play with an element of toughness, they like to run the ball, they like to go north and south. He’s a bigger player that helps in anchoring, especially in the pocket. So I think initially we got to get him up to speed. We’ve tried to trade for him most of the preseason. They wanted to hold onto him to make sure that they got through preseason healthy and didn’t necessarily need him and still have the surplus that we thought they might have. Right now, let’s get him up to speed and then from that point we’ll see where he fits in and what ends up being our best five along the way.”
Dotson was a fourth-round pick by the Steelers in the 2020 NFL draft out of Louisiana. The 26-year-old offensive lineman would make 13 starts for the Steelers in his first two seasons before starting in all 17 games in the 2022 campaign.
In recent years, the Steelers have retooled their offensive line, adding guys via free agency or through the draft. So Snead and the Rams knew that the Steelers had depth in the trenches, putting them on the team’s radar if they wanted to address the offensive line in the trade market.
With Dotson available, the Rams swapped a fourth and fifth-round pick with the Steelers in 2024 and swapped fifth and sixth-round selections in 2025 to land the former fourth-round pick. Given the current state of the offensive line, and Snead’s comments, Dotson figures to play a crucial role for the Rams in 2023.