jrry, I see the draft as a lot of moving parts, just as Snead has said in the past.
That means you will love more than one guy at the same or different positions, and at different points in the draft.
For instance, they may love Donald as well as another player or players and expect them to go somewhere in the top half of the 2nd round. So they trade down from the first round into the early 2nd round and take one of them there. This way they pick up another draft pick which can be turned into a Bailey or Stacy level player.
They got burnt with this approach in 2012, when they missed on the LBs and took Pead. But that was not just getting burnt by the approach. There was another very good LB still on the board when they took Pead at 50. His name is Lavonte David and he went at 58. They just needed to evaluate better and they would have looked like geniuses.
I just think Snead's approach works better in the long run. As Demoff said last year, they are gonna get burnt sometimes but the reward is worth the risk.
The way I see the draft is that if you can trade down, I'm all for it. In this case, I did trade down. I traded down with Green Bay(and used the pick I got from them on HB Charles Sims). However, I felt there was a likelihood that Donald could go somewhere in the 20s. So rather than risk it with another trade down, I took the sure thing.
As much as the OP is in love with Donald, lets be real here, Rams are not drafting a 3rd down DT in the first round when the rams have huge holes on the OL and secondary. Pipe dream op, pipe dream.
Lets be real here, the Rams can draft whomever they want to. It doesn't mean I'm not going to say who I think they should draft. This post is from RRF the NIGHT BEFORE THE 2ND ROUND of the 2012 NFL Draft in a topic about who the Rams should use their three second round picks on:
jrry32 said:
I'll change this up a bit.
#33 - Cordy Glenn OG Georgia
#39 - Alshon Jeffery WR South Carolina
#45 - Lavonte David OLB Nebraska
That was also a pipe dream. And in this pipe dream, we could have traded down from #33 into the 50s and drafted Cordy Glenn at #39, Alshon Jeffery at #45 and Lavonte David in the 50s. And yet I don't think there is a soul here that would be complaining if we had stayed at #33, #39 and #45 and come away with those 3 guys.
As I've said many times, these mocks are who I WOULD DRAFT, not who I think the Rams will draft. I don't pretend to be perfect but I'm pretty good at identifying talent. And I'll tell you right now, if you think all Aaron Donald is going to be is some rotational backup DT. You're going to be eating crow in a few years. I won't serve it to you, that's not my style. But hopefully, you'll remember.
Finally, as far as the holes on the OL and secondary go, I think I filled them quite well.
