Great article in The Athletic: 2023 re-draft

You want to know how incredible the Rams draft was last year?

Now that all the 2023 draft selections have spent their first year in the NFL, The Athletic did a re-draft to see what teams should have selected who in the 1st round. And guess what:

Without their own 1st round pick, the Rams landed 3 of their rookies in the 1st round re-draft, with one, Nakua, a top 10 pick., and a side note acknowledging that a fourth (Avila) could easily have been put on the 1st round list.

Think on that for a moment. The Rams essentially landed 4 players that SHOULD have been drafted in the 1st round....2 on O, 2 on D.
Snead SHOULD have been GM of the year based on that alone.

But it proves something else: terrific players can be found in almost any round. Draft profiles are opinions, not fact other than measurables. For one thing, you can't measure heart.... it has to be something a GM senses. The draft remains somewhere between a subjective art and largely throwing darts at a board. The Rams had 14 darts last year, but only have 11 this year. And despite what folks may think, that 1st round pick might have great value and it might not.

So, would the Rams be wise to move down and try to collect an extra 3rd or even 2nd? The math says they would be. But, I realize there is way more to drafting a player than odds and math. Somehow, one has to try to extrapolate the unknowables from the knowables. And the best way to do that still seems to be film study, and judging a player according to their actual performance and not some vaporous thing called "high ceiling based on potential". In other words, they were so-so in college, and should have been better, but they are freak athletes or some such thing and could be coached up..... maybe.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2024 02:00AM by RockRam.