Tag: rams draft

The start of the NFL draft is just one day away, but for the Los Angeles Rams, they’ll have to wait a little bit longer to make their first pick. They’re not slated to go on the clock until No. 52 overall in the second round, the fourth straight year they’ll go without a first-rounder.

In advance of the big (virtual) event, Les Snead and Sean McVay held a conference call with reporters to address the most notable topics surrounding the Rams – including their draft plans, the Brandin Cooks trade and the status of Leonard Floyd and A’Shawn Robinson’s contracts.

We already touched on a few of the topics from the call, such as the backup QB plan and the Rams’ confidence in Josh Reynolds, but here’s everything else we learned from their pre-draft conference call,

Rams played “hard to get” with Cooks

The Rams wanted to hold onto Cooks, and were not openly shopping him. Given his contract and the season he had in 2018 with the Rams, it’s easy to see why they wanted to keep him. But once they got offers for second-round picks, they couldn’t pass up that sort of return.

“A lot of teams did contact us about Brandin throughout this offseason – whenever the new league year started, even before a little bit. We were committed to keeping Brandin because of what he did for our offense,” Snead said. “I think in that time where we, I’d call it, naturally played hard to get because we weren’t actively trying to move him. When a few teams did come with a chance to get a second-round pick, that’s probably when we sat down and Sean and I discussed, ‘Hey, what could be best moving forward?’ That pick being very valuable. Us with the emergence of Josh Reynolds and Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp, especially Josh Reynolds coming. We’ve got a deep receiver room, I think that helped and then getting another pick in the top 60, very valuable.”

It was always going to take a strong offer for the Rams to part with Cooks because they had to take on $21.8 million in dead money, and clearly the 57th overall pick was enough to get it done.

If you’re hoping the Rams make a bold trade up from No. 52 to get back into the first round, shift your expectations elsewhere. Los Angeles is highly unlikely to make a trade of that magnitude, considering how much it would take to get into the top 32 picks.

General manager Les Snead said on Tuesday that it’s “a little unrealistic” for the Rams to trade into the first round from their top spot at No. 52.

“I think you try to make calls to get a feel for who may be willing to move. In all honesty, when you’re at 52 (overall), I bet teams that are trying to move out of late first would rather not come back that far, and usually the ammo it takes to move up, could be a little unrealistic or maybe less rational unless you’re just wanting to come away with one player,” Snead said on a conference call.

According to the trade value chart, the Rams could package picks 52 and 57 in a trade and get all the way up to No. 25 or 26 where the Vikings and Dolphins are selecting. It’s not impossible, but that would leave the Rams with about a 60-pick gap between their first-round pick and their next selection at No. 84 overall.

And for a team with as many needs as the Rams have, trading a second-round pick to move up 25 spots isn’t necessarily good business. But hypothetically, if they were to trade up to the first round, it would take a player the Rams covet in order for them to make that move.

“I think simply put, there’s a football player where we really like the human being and we really like the skillset and we think that player and person can be a benefit, can help us continue contending, continue our winning ways that we’ve established over the past few years,” Snead said of what it’d take for the Rams to move up that far.

When asked if it’s a possibility, Snead didn’t completely shoot down the idea, but he made one thing clear: The Rams will let the draft come to them.

In doing so, they’re not going to reach for a player by making a huge trade up. With how deep this class is, they can stand pat at No. 52 and 57 and draft two immediate contributors without having to make a deal.

Of course, Snead is often looking to trade down to gather picks, specifically those in the top 100.

“Since we’ve been here, we’ve proven that we’ll go get a player and we’ll also move back to acquire more picks in the draft, which ultimately means more players,” Snead said. “So that’s the benefit, you either give up a player on the back end to go get one, or maybe you gain one or two more that you weren’t expecting if you trade back. We’ll try to navigate that as the draft comes to us, because when you’re picking 52, 57, there is an element that you have to allow the draft to come to you a little bit.”

Sean McVay and Les Snead won’t be in the same room when the draft is going on this year as the coronavirus pandemic will force all team members to work from home during the three-day event. As such, McVay has set up his at-home draft war room and it looks awesome.

He gave reporters a preview of his monitor-filled desk Tuesday, saying it looks like he could set off a spaceship from the command center.

McVay has three monitors behind two laptops, with two of the screens handling the offensive and defensive draft boards, respectively.

Another look… pic.twitter.com/S5hSU3QiFr

— Omar Ruiz (@OmarDRuiz) April 21, 2020

Before the NFL ordered all team coaches and front office members to work from home, the Rams had identified McVay’s house as the most suitable location for the team to hold its war room. That won’t be happening, of course, so McVay will be working by himself in front of the desk.

Snead will have his own setup, too, and based on his current beard situation, it seems he hasn’t left his house in a while.

Les Snead still going with Instagram filter glasses. pic.twitter.com/cumHypdcJH

— Andrew Siciliano (@AndrewSiciliano) April 21, 2020