Inside the draft room: One last trade to pick up Greg Gaines

Inside the draft room: One last trade to pick up Greg Gaines

Myles Simmons

After a flurry of trades to pick four players on Friday night, there’s not much time before the Rams get back at it in the draft room on Saturday morning.

There are positives to living in pacific time during the draft. The first two nights start at 5 p.m. and 4 p.m., respectively — so you’re not picking players late into the night. But the drawback is that Saturday’s fourth-round proceedings begin at 9 a.m. It’s an early morning.

As the day begins, Los Angeles has four picks — No. 162, No. 167, No. 169, and No. 251. The first three are in the fifth round, and the final in the seventh.

Rams assistant director of college scouting Ted Monago enters the draft room at about 8:58, saying that this is the day where it’s time to find gold.

“You can always find gold,” he says.

In this case, that starts with the Rams finding a way to move up for defensive tackle Greg Gaines. General manager Les Snead would say later that afternoon at the post-draft press conference that acquiring Gaines was the team’s “first priority” for Saturday. According to Snead, he and McVay had met that morning, and came to the conclusion that Gaines would be the right fit to compete for the nose tackle spot vacated by the departed Ndamukong Suh in Los Angeles’ base 3-4 defense.

But because the Rams opened the day with selections toward the end of the fifth round, there was work to be done in order to make the priority reality.

Go To Full Article--
[www.therams.com]