Rams GM Les Snead seems prepared to trade down on Day 2...

Rams GM Les Snead sounds prepared to trade down on Day 2

[theramswire.usatoday.com]

Cameron DaSilva

Another 24 picks will be made before the Los Angeles Rams finally go on the clock at No. 57 overall in the second round, but prepare yourself for the idea that they may not make their first pick at that spot.

General manager Les Snead sounds like a man who’s prepared to trade down at some point on the second night of the draft with the Rams picking at 57, 88 and 103. He said the Rams will do some homework on teams behind them who could be interested in trading up, but it also depends on which players fall.

And even though he’ll surely get calls about No. 57 as he has already, Snead expects to field a lot of offers for pick 88 and 103 at the end of the third round with teams trying to get a player before Saturday.

“The answer’s yes,” Snead said when asked if he feels good about exploring trade options. “We’ve been working a lot on the players and if you want to call it the ‘Friday players’ the second- and third-rounders. So, we’ll do some prep tomorrow to see which teams might be willing to come up, but a lot of times when you’re at 57, you’ll get random calls, maybe calls that you didn’t plan for because maybe someone falls and a team back behind you, now they’re calling you because they want that player. So sometimes it’s surprising. I think maybe 88, really maybe even pick 103, that’s usually, historically, you probably get a lot of calls there as teams maybe want to jump up into that bottom of the third instead of waiting until Saturday to make that pick. So that’s usually a busy area as well when you’re picking in the late third. Sometimes it’s wild, we’ll be on the phone and it’s just – you don’t have enough phones to answer and then sometimes it’s quiet. So, it probably depends on who falls, but the second and third round there is usually still some pretty salty players on the board that people want to move up and get.”

The Rams spent Thursday night watching the draft but also preparing for Day 2. They’ve worked through multiple scenarios for the second and third rounds, going through the process of who they could pick or what trades they might make if they don’t see a guy they covet fall into their laps.

“We’ve talked through multiple scenarios, so the board’s set, and it’ll be a guiding north star for us tomorrow,” he said. “When we get to 57, let’s just say we have a favorite, a second favorite, third favorite and fourth. Myself, the GM, will always know what if we don’t get our fifth favorite and you get – a lot of times, you say, ‘Okay, if we get to this point, maybe we trade back,’ but you’re always trying to plan what if you don’t have a dance partner and you can’t trade, right? You have to pick, so you definitely want to – I don’t want to call it worst-case scenarios, but definitely talk through the scenarios where you get deep into that so that you’re not necessarily doing it on the clock, but as it gets closer to 57 there’ll be a good feel for how the board has fallen and if it’s fallen the way we’d prefer or not.”

The Rams have six picks the rest of the way and would probably like to add another one or two to the mix – as Les Snead often does. They don’t necessarily have to, but trading back and adding a fourth- or fifth-round pick would do them a lot of good heading into Saturday.