TRANSCRIPT: Rams General Manager Les Snead – NFL Draft Day 1 Availability – April 23, 2020

Rams General Manager Les Snead – NFL Draft Day 1 Availability – April 23, 2020

(On what it was like watching the tackles and wide receivers come off the board and if it played out the way he thought it would for the first round)
“The answer would be yes, because you always try to predict who might or might not be where you’re picking. We certainly had a lot of those players that went today as ‘no shot’ of making it to the second round. It’s hard to predict the order, but you can do a pretty decent job handicapping who is going to go and who is not.”

(On what stood out to him about the first round)
“I think the thing that I – probably like a fan, early in the draft – not many trades early in the draft. Probably came off like maybe it was drawn up to come off a long time ago with (Cincinnati Bengals Q Joe Burrow going one and the two Ohio State kids and then (Miami Dolphins Q Tua (Tagovailoa) and then the Oregon QB. Like any first round, somewhere in the teens is when things get interesting. Especially when you’ve definitely been studying this class for over a year and you’re well versed in who these players are, not just a household name. It’s always fun to kind of see how some of those later first-round picks, who they are, and you go, ‘Okay, wow that’s a good football player.’ So, kudos to that group who gets them.”

(On if he feels good going into the second day of the draft in terms of the players they might have a shot at drafting)
“Definitely, definitely. Nothing really, really changed today because normally where we’re picking – and I think I mentioned it in the press conference the other day – being a little bit later in the second round, even if somebody from this round would have fallen into early twos (second round), they were going to have to drop probably eight to 10 spots before you can make a move to go get them. The players that we’ve targeted, the players that we researched a lot are still there, but what does make it interesting is we’re still 20 or so picks away. A lot of good football players are going to come off before we pick.”

(On if any teams contacted him about the Rams trading into the first round)
“Usually, I only keep that between myself, but really there was none. No one asked, no one called to come all the way back (to No. 52 overall). So, I think when you’re coming from where we were, we would have had to pursued that opportunity.”

(On how things went logistically with internal and external communication)
“It was very smooth, but we didn’t obviously have to turn in a pick, but all the technology worked – see who everybody else picked, clocks worked. So, definitely expect tomorrow to be smooth, but tomorrow’s faster. You shave three minutes off the shot clock, so that will pose some sort of new variable that tonight didn’t.”

(On if there was any position group that he thought there was still plenty of players available to select No. 52 overall)
“Well, it’s interesting, because again, we came into this thing handicapped, it’s not like you’re hoping someone falls. We were probably, relatively realistic of what positions were somewhat deep, which ones might stretch to 52. I don’t think anything happened tonight that changed that, right? You saw a lot of wide receivers go, you saw a lot of tackles go, as always, you see corners go and like every draft between now and tomorrow’s kickoff, we’ll see a lot of the 10-15 best available players and there will be some names that may have been floated as possible first rounders over the course of this draft season that are still standing. That’s always a fun opening bell right there at the 33rd, 34th, 35th pick.”

(On his overall philosophy to when he would start looking to move up in the second round of the draft for a specific player)
"It's a simple math formula, obviously the further you go up, the more picks you have to give. So, it's one of those, is someone valuable enough to make you give up one of your third rounds, or do you wait a little bit and maybe give up the fourth rounder? It's really probably some sort of algebra formula on if you move up, you're sacrificing – I call it multiple players for maybe less players. We all know that every now and then there's a player that's definitely worth it. So, we will certainly monitor it and try to determine whether it’s best to attack or sit back and wait and take who's there. But when you do wait, I think the strategy has to be when you're 52 (overall), 57 (overall), you're probably not waiting for one position, you definitely have to have multiple positions in the mix to probably make the best decision."

(On if the draft's more unpredictable later in the second round than early in the first round)
"Yes. I've always said it gets relatively unpredictable somewhere in the mid-to-late-teens. I'm sure for all there was a player or two who went that you weren't expecting to go. I've said since I've been doing this, especially over the last four to six years, probably the last four years, 'Somewhere in those teens there's a player that goes and probably multiple that – however many of us are on this call we didn't have at least, one, two, three, four, maybe even five of those players going in the first round.' It doesn't mean they're not first rounders, because they actually are, doesn't (inaudible) players."




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