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The second selection may be familiar to those who’ve watched a lot of Jayden Daniels film from last year. Though LSU crushed Auburn, this guy made two highlight reel plays against the future Heisman winner — first breaking up a pass that led to an INT and then drilling Daniels on the goalline to prevent a TD. The interception is the play that really speaks to what the Rams like about him, as it showed off his instincts, speed, and quick-twitch breaks on the ball. While he has played both corner and safety, the Rams envision him as a true free safety, with the speed, ball skills, and acumen to be a potential turnover creator on the back end next to Kam Curl. With the 155th pick, the Los Angeles Rams select Jaylin Simpson, FS, Auburn

The Rams have back to back picks, both of which were located while scouting this QB class. The first pick is a player type that the Rams have always been willing to take shots on, an undersized WR. Good route runner, good hands, electric after the catch — he’s just very thinly built. The analytics love him, though, as he ranked top 5 in WROPS among draftable receivers, top 10 in YPRR, and finished 2nd in PFF’s consensus stable metrics rankings. He led all WRs in this draft in career YAC per reception (removing screens). He will likely return kicks and punts for the Rams, and he’ll get every opportunity to make plays on offense as well. With the 154th pick, the Los Angeles Rams select Tahj Washington, WR, USC

Rams would be looking to move up from pick 155. Would be offering 155 + 213.

One of the major changes Sean McVay made to his offense last season was moving to more of a gap power scheme in the run game. Committing to this approach, the Rams have invested heavily in IOLs who can maul their way to interior dominance — 330 pound 2nd-rounder Steve Avila will start at center, and they poured $33M AAV into monster guards Jonah Jackson and Kevin Dotson. One benefit of this change is that former 5th round pick Kyren Williams has emerged as a legitimate starter, despite doubts about his size/speed combo as a prospect. His vision, balance, and tempo have allowed him to excel in this power scheme. This pick will provide Kyren with a backfield mate who shares those traits, and adds a bit more speed and explosion. He was PFF’s #2 gap scheme runner of the last two years, he’s a two-time All-American, and he just so happened to carry his team to a national championship last year. We expect that he will soon make up the lion’s share of an extremely effective RB duo. With the 99th pick, the Los Angeles Rams select Blake Corum, RB, Michigan

The Rams were one of the best offensive teams in the league last season, ranking in the top 8 in both points and yards. Their defense, however, left a lot to be desired, with a defensive front 7 that had been picked apart by FA and had grown totally dependent on Aaron Donald for superheroics. This selection marks a 3rd consecutive pick devoted to revamping that group, infusing speed, explosion, and youth to a unit badly in need of all 3. He is highly productive and a fluid mover, with a knack for making plays all over the field, an excellent fit to join the underrated Ernest Jones in the off-ball LB corps of this hybrid defense. With the 83rd pick, the Los Angeles Rams select Cedric Gray, LB, North Carolina

The Rams will continue the “re-calibration” of their defensive front by taking a player with the versatility to playing standing up or with his hand in the dirt. A player who shows violent, physical play on tape coupled with elite agility scores that demonstrate his ability to bend the edge as a pass-rusher. He will be the last piece of a ferocious young DL that will feature Kobie Turner, Byron Young, and Byron Murphy II. He just…might have to do something about that uniform number. With the 52nd pick, the Rams select Marshawn Kneeland, EDGE, Western Michigan.

Yes. And I think this is especially the case for us, as the “break” between tiers at the positions we’re looking at seems likely to happen shortly before our pick. At least based on where the draftniks have the players going in their mocks. For example, I think there’s a pretty big drop off at OT after Morgan/Guyton — both of whom seem likely to go in the late 20s or early 30s. I think there’s a meaningful drop after Kool-Aid among the CBs, and he’s another who looks likely to go in the late 20s or early 30s. I think there’s a big drop off after the two Robinsons at the EDGE position, and (guess what?) they’re both likely to be in the 20s or early 30s. I don’t think the drop off is quite as steep at the WR position, but after Sanders’s pro day numbers, there’s obviously no TE in play at 36/40 either. In other words, I do not think 36 and 40 are great “fits” for our needs and the draft board. I think the ideal scenario might be to use one of the 3rds to move up from 36 into the late 20s, and then trade back from 40 into the mid-late 50s to recoup that 3rd rounder.

You’re on the clock, my friend!

As we’ve made clear with our historic spending on two guards this offseason, the Rams understand that the modern game minimizes the impact of all but the most elite EDGE players and that interior pressure is the most important way to quickly disrupt passing games. You can’t replace an Aaron Donald, but the combination of robbed ROY Kobie Turner and this man will ensure that the tradition of terrorizing QBs with interior pass-rush lives on with the Rams. With the 19th pick, the Los Angeles Rams select: DT Byron Murphy II, University of Texas

Not quite on the clock yet, but the Rams are open to moving down from pick 19, if anyone is looking to slide up the board.

Yeah, I have Maye solidly ahead of Jayden, but this is absolutely correct. He isn’t Willis or even draft-year Howell, in the sense of being a one-and-run guy. Calling him a one-read QB, or even a half-field reader is flatly wrong. He’s sort of a half-field thrower at times, just due to the college hashes, but that’s a different issue. If you give him the time, he’ll work the whole field. For me, the issues come in when you don’t give him the time. Once the pocket starts to break down, I think Jayden starts to “see the field through a straw,” as @Going Commando refers to it. That’s when it seems like he’s sort of taking one last look and then taking off. Which, when you can run like he does, isn’t a bad choice. And, incidentally, I don’t think that makes him different/worse than most young QBs. The ability to hit the eject button, escape the danger, then reset and restart the processing machine again is extremely rare. It’s not a “knock” on him that he doesn’t show much ability to do that at the moment. It’s just that the two guys ahead of him can do that to a much larger extent, which is what makes them such precious commodities. I agree with this also. I don’t see a ton of manipulation from Jayden, I see a lot more straightforward processing of his reads. Which is a little easier to do when you have athletes who are winning most of their matchups. He does absolutely show the ability to hold a middle-field safety when he sees a one-on-one he likes, though. I consider him one of the best “touch” deep ball throwers I’ve ever watched, in terms of dropping in the go balls and the posts and the slot fades (reminds me of Cousins throwing those 25-yard slot fades). And he has developed the ability to look off those routes at first, at least long enough to give himself a window to drop those balls in. I think Maye does this more than Jayden does, but it’s inconsistent and sort of unrefined. Obviously, everyone hears the knock about him “locking on” to his first read. I think this is somewhat unfair criticism, just because he didn’t consistently have the luxury of time to comfortably go through his reads like Daniels and JJ and Penix typically did. It felt like he had to “guess” pre-snap much more than they did, in an effort to be in position to get rid of the ball quickly if needed. So it does happen where he’s clearly settled on one guy. But on the other side of the coin, I also think he sometimes even over-did it with the efforts to move defenders. On one of the 4th-quarter picks I looked at the other day, he actually spent too much time trying to hold a safety/LB by looking off his (lazy ass) in-breaking route by Tez, and by the time he got his eyes (and body) back to it, the ball comes out half a tick late. Which…you like the concept and it bodes well moving forward for the cerebral game — but he’s still a 21-year-old second-year college starter, so the precision/timing of it ain’t always there yet.

2022 is a weird season to evaluate, I feel like. I’m totally on board with cutting him some slack there, given new teammates and coaching and playbook (and zip code). Definite step up in competition. And you have to like 17 TDs to 3 picks. But he was just SO gunshy, presumably in large part due to uncertainty. He just wouldn’t let the ball fly, which is clear when you watch him but even just in the numbers. The 2022 pressure to sack ratio is deeply disturbing, and 7.5 Y/A with those playmakers is just awful — that number placed him squarely between Kedon Slovis (Pitt) and Graham Mertz (Wisconsin), among noteworthy names, neither of whom should be drafted at all. It wasn’t a bad season. But it’s probably comparable (at best) to his freshman year on its face — and I think the step up in competition is more than balanced out by the fact that he was a senior and a 4th-year starter (as compared to a true freshman). He was fine, but I still think it was mostly just plateaued from where he was in 2019. Which I think was the case right up until the day he absolutely destroyed Grambling and the light bulb went on (in a major, major way).

Yeah, those of us who “don’t follow college football enough” have been fooled into thinking that Michigan had pass-catching talent. That a Day 2 receiver (Wilson), a Day 3 receiver (Johnson), a Day 3 tight end (Barner), a likely Day 2 tight end next year (Loveland), and the best RB duo in the country (both of whom were weapons in the pass game) is a strong group. Most college teams have 6 surefire upper-class draft picks at the skill positions to throw to. You’re 100% right that they leaned on their OL and run game a lot. That was their calling card. Moreso than any elite team since the Jalen Hurts Bama team, probably. They had a special group, and everything you said that I didn’t quote is true — well-coached, cohesive team, good leaders, all that stuff. And that includes McCarthy. But again, there are those of us among the uneducated masses who think maybe one of the main reasons they didn’t totally trust their passing game, even in big situations, is because their QB singlehandedly put 14 points on the board for a grossly inferior TCU team in last year’s CFP Semis and dug them a hole too deep to escape.

The bolded is just patently untrue. That Oregon game was the high point of his career until the last 10 games. His next 3 seasons were, at best, totally stagnant. Many would say he “regressed,” particularly in his 3rd season, when he threw 10 picks to match his 10 TDs. He was a legit prospect after that excellent freshman year. Then he basically disappeared from the radar for 3 seasons. Glad he finished so strong…he seems like a nice kid. But he absolutely did not “progress every year.”

Just his father, Mark. Mark May(e). The spirit of the Hogs courses through his veins.

Pretty bold claim. What’s he basing that on? The Lance trade seems like a pretty reasonable comp — SF went from 12 to 3, rather than from 11 to 3 (as MIN would be doing), but it’s pretty close. SF gave up three 1sts (including 12) and a 3rd for pick 3. Comparing that to the picks the original tweet is suggesting MIN would give up, I think each MIN pick would roughly be considered more valuable: MIN #11 > SF #12 MIN #23 > SF 1st (+1 year) MIN 1st (+1 year) > SF 1st (+2 years) SF had to throw in a current year 3rd on top of the three 1sts, so maybe MIN would have to add a bit more. But having to add a whole other 1st to sweeten the pot enough? That seems like a stretch. I’m not sure he’s properly valuing the fact that the MIN deal would include multiple current-year 1sts. Teams rarely give up multiple 1sts in the same draft — usually these major packages involve picks in successive years.

Good pick, @gooseneck! I’ll take the Rams…how often do you get to pretend to make a Rams 1st round pick? Once a decade occurrence.

Perhaps. I’d settle for a short-term answer as well, if you’ve got any ideas on that front. It seems an odd management choice to invest this massive asset in a young QB, and then make almost no effort to bring aboard an actual quality LT to help secure his blind side. Given that I don’t think this staff are idiots, I’m operating under the assumption that they have some idea in place to take care of that position in a satisfactory fashion.

LT is one of those positions like QB, where the league pretty much knows whether you’re capable of being a long-term starter (with a few exceptions, of course) by the time the draft rolls around. They’re not flawless in picking out who will be successful, but they’re excellent at being able to tell who won’t. In other words, guys who fall past a certain point in the draft almost never turn into good long-term LT starters. When you look at the past 10 drafts, you’ve got maybe a total of 10-15 good starting OTs drafted after pick 40 (depending on how you define “good”). Obviously, that’s not many. And a lot of these guys are full-time RTs: Morgan Moses, Rob Havenstein, Brian O’Neill, Spencer Brown, Taylor Morton, Abraham Lucas, Dawand Jones. Which doesn’t even include guys like Trent Brown and Orlando Brown Jr., who certainly feel more like RTs, even though they’ve played both. In terms of actual quality starting LTs, you’ve got Dion Dawkins, Jordan Mailata, Charles Leno, Bernhard Raimann, and the two Browns. To be generous, we can even add Rasheed Walker, who just had a nice season for GB, to take us to 7 guys in 10 years. The even bigger problem for this team is that we presently need an immediate starter. None of those guys started from day one as a rookie, and 4 of the 7 (Leno, Mailata, Trent Brown, and Walker) basically redshirted their first pro season. Dawkins (who was drafted as a guard), Little Zeus (who started out at RT), and Raimann (who I mentally picture as Ivan Drago, which is the only interesting fact I have about him) all came off the bench to start about 10 games as rookies. The point, for those who wanted me to cut to it sooner, is that NFL LTs are rare commodities — and plug and play starters at the position are even more rare. NFL teams seldom allow them to slide down the board. Which means that our answer at LT in 2024 is almost certainly not Kingsley Zissou or Notre Dame’s RT or Chris Paul’s brother or the guy from Yale who dominated future Cabinet members and poet laureates. I’m at peace with them drafting a guy like that, but it’s as a project, not an instant contributor. I think the 2024 starting LT (if it isn’t Lucas) will have to come via a trade. My preferred route remains Denver pulling the plug and shipping out Garett Bolles for cap relief. If not that, I think it will have to be a trade-up. It’s too critical a need to sit around hoping someone like Jordan Morgan falls to us at 36 — and then hoping he’s actually capable.

I don’t want to mess with the storyline, but he actually only converted one 3rd and long (or 4th and long) in the two games of the CFP. That was a second quarter 3rd and 10 in the Alabama game, where he threw a shallow crosser to Tyler Morris, 5 yards short of the sticks, and Morris turned it upfield and scored a 38-yard TD. In total, JJ threw 17 passes on 3rd and 4th downs in the CFP, and Michigan got 3 successful conversions out of them.

No harm done at all, I don’t think it’s your obligation to devote hours of your night to investigate each concerning data point you may come upon before sharing it 😂 Just didn’t want that information to fall into the hands of folks like Kurt Benkert and Kurt Warner, who are out there trying to influence our staff into not taking Maye. Likely as punishment for how our franchise treated their fellow Kurt, I can only assume.

In 2022, Maye threw 9 TDs to 2 INTs in the 4th quarter of games. I don’t think he just turned “un-clutch” last year. I know you’re not pushing that narrative, but in the wrong hands, that stat is dangerous. Just to provide some context, these are the 5 fourth quarter picks from last season. 1. Leading South Carolina 31-17, 11:48 left. Throw down right sideline, back shoulder ball (about 25 yards downfield). Ball hits Paysour in both hands, bounces off, directly into hands of defending DB. Ball probably could have been a bit further outside, but obvious drop and bad fortune on the carom. 2. Trailing UVA 31-27, 0:31 left (midfield, no timeouts). Hit as he throws, ball comes floating out, intercepted by LB with no receiver within 15 yards of him. LT gets badly beaten instantly off the edge, no help from unoccupied LG, edge rusher hits Maye within approximately 2 seconds of snap. 3. Trailing Clemson 31-20, 2:41 left. Throw to Maye’s right, Walker running a hitch or stop on the sideline, about 9 yards downfield. N. Wiggins jumps it, cuts in front of Walker to make the pick. Maye was maybe a little late, but Walker doesn’t come back to the ball at all. Very nice play by Wiggins. 4. Trailing NC State 39-20, 12:13 left. Throw to Maye’s right, Walker running some sort of in-breaking route, about 8 yards downfield. DB gets his hand in, ball pops up, and P. Wilson dives to intercept. Maye forced it a bit, but Walker runs an incredibly lazy route. He’s really not good on anything except verticals. Tough break on the carom. 5. Trailing NC State 39-20, 1:54 left. Throw over the left hash, Nesbit running deep crosser (25 yards) against Cover 3 shell. Ball hits Nesbit in both hands, pops up into the air, safety dives to intercept it. Throw was a bit high and a bit behind, Nesbit had to jump and reach back to try to catch it, but it’s certainly deemed a “drop” in the NFL. Yet another bad break on the carom.

It seems like a shame that his insane innate desire to win didn’t kick in until just now. Imagine if he had discovered his deep-seated obsession with being the best before his 5th season as a college starter — he’d probably be playing in the pros right now, rather than the middle 60% of his career being perceived as overwhelmingly disappointing. And I’d wager that guys like Herm Edwards, Ricky Pearsall, Johnny Wilson, Curtis Hodges, Kayshon Boutte, etc., probably wish that they’d gotten the chance to work with the version of Jayden that makes everyone around him better and explicitly leads his teammates to improve. Sorry to be a smartass, but after a while these narratives start to wear thin. If working super hard is what made all the difference, why wasn’t he always working super hard? Gives a bit of “contract year” vibes, doesn’t it? Joe Whitt had a great line in his intro presser, where he said that if you can decide to work harder on demand, you weren't working hard enough to start with. I suspect Jayden always worked hard and wanted to win. I think he’s probably a great kid. I can believe that he committed himself totally before his last year — but I think the outcomes/results are causing the actual extent of the intangibles to be overblown and exaggerated. LSU was a perfect storm on offense last year, elite OL play and elite receiver play, along with a QB who played amazingly in his 5th year as a college starter (after FSU, that is). Attributing the play of all those different units and players to “Jayden really decided to bust his butt and they followed him” is vastly selling short their individual talents and contributions, in my view. If you like and accept the narrative that Jayden was the rising tide that lifted the ship of guys like Nabers, Thomas Jr, Lacy, Taylor, Campbell, Jones, etc., that’s fine. Though I will say, most of those guys were already really good prior to this past offseason, so the timeline doesn’t exactly hold up there. Given that the likelihood of him being our pick seems higher today than ever (thanks Breer), I hope you’re right on this. I hope it’s a totally accurate narrative and he has super-elite intangibles that these other kids — both of whom became legit stars much earlier than he did — can’t match.

I’d be down to handle a team, always enjoy these types of thing!

2nd in pass-rush win rate and pressure rate per PFF last year. 1st in pass-rush win rate and 2nd in pressure rate in 2022. He’s an elite pass-rusher, regardless of sack totals. The issue with him is that he’s a liability in the run game, and thus isn’t on the field a ton. I think that’s less of an issue for Quinn than most other 4-3 coordinators, given that he’s always had guys like Cliff Avril, Bruce Irvin, Vic Beasley, Takk McKinley, and Micah Parsons — that undersized LEO with the burst and the twitch and the bend. But to me, that’s the concern with Huff: the quantity of the snaps you can reasonably get out of him, definitely not the quality. He is a pressure machine.