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dzrams

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spagsbacker
there are guys like Everett, Havenstein, Noteboom & Joyner. taken as a whole, these are not difference makers. You can't build a team around these types of guys. These types fill out rosters, but should not be relied upon as core players. We are a top heavy team with great players in AD and Ramsey to a lesser degree. We are also paying top dollars to guys like Goff, Gurley, & Cooks who are clearly NOT top guys. ALL teams find a few gems in the mid rounds, for every Kupp, another team has someone similar. IF our top paid guys played like top players, maybe we could get by, but that is not the case. You cannot argue that not only do you need 1st rd draft picks to find studs, BUT also getting studs at a cheap price for 4/5 years allows teams to pay the studs on their roster and keep their own free agents. This guy gets it, and is being objective. The arguments against are a way of denial.

Several counter points:

Everyone doesn't have to be a difference maker. We've still gotten a lot of starters - Hav and Joyner for sure - in mid rounds. If you research traditional hit rates in the various studies that have been done - which typically define a hit as a starter, not a difference maker - for the 2nd and 3rd rounds and compare that to the results the Rams have been getting, you'll see that the Rams have lately had above average success. On average the studies show that a hit for 2nd rounders is 50% at best and in the 25-30% range for 3rd round picks. And again this hit rate is not only counting "difference makers" it's counting mere starters of all qualities.

Looking at the Rams results for 2nd round picks we have definite hits in Rapp, Hav, and Joyner since 2014. That's if you don't want to count Everett's contribution. So for finding starters - i.e. the fill out the roster types - in the 2nd round, they are 3 for 4 which is way above 50%. Or if you want to look at worst case perspective since they've lacked 2nd round picks for two of the years, in the 6 year period they've found 3 players for a 50% rate. That's still at the top of what the 2nd round typically produces.

Looking at their recent 3rd round success (last 3 years of 2017 - 2019), we have Kupp, JJ, and Evans who are foreseeable starters. And it's possible that Henderson, Long, and Noteboom will still emerge as starters since none of them are clear busts yet. So they have had a 50% success rate for 3rd round picks too. And two of these 3rd rounders are difference makers.

That's phenomenal! So NO, NO, NO, every other team is not having this level of success in the mid rounds. It's simply not true that for every Kupp EVERY other team has someone similar.

If this guy had looked deeper and factored in the Rams success rate on mid round picks and still concluded they were doomed, I'd give more credence to his analysis. But he failed to do that and frankly it's because he's not knowledgeable enough about the team to be able to do a deeper analysis.

No one is arguing that it doesn't hurt to lack 1st rounders but given the team's above average rate of success in the mid rounds, a "they are doomed" assertion is unwarranted and not completely objective since the analysis was shallow.