Just finished the latest episode of the 11 Personnel podcast, where Jourdan talked about how good the Rams are in drafting DBs - both safeties and CBs. She positioned it as a 'core strength' or 'capability' of the Rams. This triggered a thought as to which positions should be considered a draft strength vs weakness...
No approach is perfect, but here's what I have done:
- Focus on the drafts since McVay became head coach and where we can be more definitive as to the player performance - so 2017-2020 drafts
- Not including UDFAs, too many to count and feels too random to me; if a team likes a player, draft him!
Defense hits
- DT STRENGTH - Joseph-Day (2018 draft), Gaines (2019) - 2 out of 3 picks (3rd being Smart)
- Edge WEAK - Franklin-Meyers (2018) - 1 out of 8
- ILB WEAK - 0 out of 3
- Safety STRENGTH - Johnson (2017), Rapp (2019), Scott (2019), Fuller (2020) - 3/4 out of 5 picks (5th being Burgess), you can argue if Rapp is a hit
- CB TOUGH TO CALL - only drafted one CB between 2017 and 2020 - Long
Offense hits
- OL STRENGTH - Noteboom (2018), Allen (2018), Edwards (2019) - 2/3 out of 6, you can argue if Edwards is a hit
- WR TOUGH TO CALL - Kupp (2017), Jefferson (2020) - 1/2 out of 3, you can argue if Jefferson is a hit
- TE WEAK - 0 out of 2 (Everett, Hopkins)
- RB WEAK - Akers (2020, ?) - 1 out of 4, you can argue if Akers is a hit
- QB NO DATA
So to me, the strengths are in drafting DT, Safety and OL. Do you agree? Feel free to play around with the data and include UDFAs.
The key to me is that we should not simply say the Rams are great in drafting and developing players. We should be more nuanced and differentiated in specifying where they are strong in:
- drafting (amateur scouts)
- identifying/recruiting UDFAs (amateur scouts)
- identifying players waived from other teams (pro scouts)
- developing (coaching staff, strength staff, etc)
Look forward to hearing thoughts from this board
