I wanted Concepcion, but he went higher than I expected. A perfect pick for this team this year and going forward. A complimentary WR to Puka, and a returner with upside on ST’s.
Puka left practice early with calf injury
- Thread starter Stl2La
- Start date
-
To unlock all of features of Rams On Demand please take a brief moment to register. Registering is not only quick and easy, it also allows you access to additional features such as live chat, private messaging, and a host of other apps exclusive to Rams On Demand.
Stop it. Youre making too much sense
El Chapo Jr
Legend
IMO, the APPROACH was right headed as years of NFL history tells us that when a team has a chance to nab what they believe to be a potential franchise QB, you don't pass on that opportunity. And if that kid pans out, you've got him on a rookie contract which greatly assists in team building.
And counting on any rookie is a horrible gameplan if the plan is to go for it all. Boston, Concepcion, and even my guy Cooper would still have a rookie learn curve to navigate in this offense. The best strategy for a 2026 go for it all type move would have been to deal that selection for a veteran WR just like they did at CB (McDuffie) with that second 1st rounder.
1. Injuries are a normal part of NFL football, especially if you draft a player like Puka Nacua who was injury-prone in college.
2. Losing (and winning) close games is a normal part of NFL football. The Chiefs lost the Super Bowl to cap the 2024 season. At that point, they had won 17 straight one-score games. ESPN ranked them 2nd in the preseason power rankings for the 2025 season, once again a favorite to return the SB. Instead, they went 1-9 in one-score games that season and finished 6-11.
3. Difficult decisions in the draft are a normal part of NFL football. Even if you make the "right" (or wrong) decision, sometimes what happens is it impacts subsequent transactions, so the results don't always diverge the way you might think. For example, Greg Robinson didn't work out as intended. One of the consequences of this, however, is the Rams felt urgency to "overspend" on Andrew Whitworth to pull him away from the Bengals. Trung Canidate (2000) didn't work out as intended. This "failure" is part of what resulted in the Rams drafting Steven Jackson.
4. Some draft decisions do lead a team down a downward spiral. The Rams know this well first-hand. The Jacksonville Jaguars drafted Blaine Gabbert one slot ahead of JJ Watt in 2011. This became a monumental mistake on many levels. Since they had just drafted a high 1st round QB, the Jags skip QB entirely in the 2012 draft that was stuffed full of good QB talent. Instead, they traded up (beating out the Rams) to get receiver Justin Blackmon. After Gabbert doesn't work out and since they didn't go QB in 2012, they take Blake Bortles near the very top of the 2014 draft. While still sticking with Bortles, they go with a RB, Leonard Fournette, in a very strong RB draft class, instead of targeting a QB in 2017, missing out on Patrick Mahomes. Maybe with Trevor Lawrence they have the right QB but even this is a little questionable, because if Lawrence had fulfilled the hype on him as a draft prospect, he should be the league's MVP this season, because age-wise this should be the prime of his career.
No matter how cloudy it is today, tomorrow is a new day.
2. Losing (and winning) close games is a normal part of NFL football. The Chiefs lost the Super Bowl to cap the 2024 season. At that point, they had won 17 straight one-score games. ESPN ranked them 2nd in the preseason power rankings for the 2025 season, once again a favorite to return the SB. Instead, they went 1-9 in one-score games that season and finished 6-11.
3. Difficult decisions in the draft are a normal part of NFL football. Even if you make the "right" (or wrong) decision, sometimes what happens is it impacts subsequent transactions, so the results don't always diverge the way you might think. For example, Greg Robinson didn't work out as intended. One of the consequences of this, however, is the Rams felt urgency to "overspend" on Andrew Whitworth to pull him away from the Bengals. Trung Canidate (2000) didn't work out as intended. This "failure" is part of what resulted in the Rams drafting Steven Jackson.
4. Some draft decisions do lead a team down a downward spiral. The Rams know this well first-hand. The Jacksonville Jaguars drafted Blaine Gabbert one slot ahead of JJ Watt in 2011. This became a monumental mistake on many levels. Since they had just drafted a high 1st round QB, the Jags skip QB entirely in the 2012 draft that was stuffed full of good QB talent. Instead, they traded up (beating out the Rams) to get receiver Justin Blackmon. After Gabbert doesn't work out and since they didn't go QB in 2012, they take Blake Bortles near the very top of the 2014 draft. While still sticking with Bortles, they go with a RB, Leonard Fournette, in a very strong RB draft class, instead of targeting a QB in 2017, missing out on Patrick Mahomes. Maybe with Trevor Lawrence they have the right QB but even this is a little questionable, because if Lawrence had fulfilled the hype on him as a draft prospect, he should be the league's MVP this season, because age-wise this should be the prime of his career.
No matter how cloudy it is today, tomorrow is a new day.
I get that perspective and understand the value in it, I just think that it was the wrong way to go.
And your draft strategy would've been better for this year, for sure.
with Pukas history of not being available it puts a tough gm decision this year for his contract.
Disagree completely. There's a difference between picks that don't make an impact and intentionally drafting guys you know won't make an impact as rookies.
If they don't make the Super Bowl this year, it will be a wasted year. Not using the draft value they did on the first two picks for this year's roster will end up being folly.
I'm talking post-Stafford.. and someone always shakes loose. And, yeah.. it's imperfect.. and there's no guarantee Simpson will be a SB caliber QB. The point is that nothing is guaranteed and drafting for the future when your roster still had obvious failure points was a bad idea.
Yes.. obviously.
No guarantee Simpson will be a SB caliber QB. No guarantee you'll have a roster like this one anytime soon.
Yes.. you don't understand my point, because you're making it. If you go all in... GO ALL IN. You don't half-ass it and use your top picks for the future.
I don't disagree that trading for vets would've been an even better use.
But I am saying that when your roster had obvious failure points... WR, ILB and STs.. and did not address them appropriately, you're making a mistake for this season if you truly are shooting for the SB.
A 3rd WR with actual juice could've helped a great deal.. both as a guy who could put some pressure on defenses, and as someone to play because Adams was likely to miss some time. I can't say I saw a two-month injury coming.. but I did figure a game here and there.
The more I think about it, I'd potentially shop him to AFC teams. If we can get a huge haul of draft comp, you have to consider it. Injury history and off field issues = not a safe player to give $50m/yr to IMO. And I love him as a player as much as anyone. On top of the draft picks, your freeing up a ton of cap with likely rookie salaries to enjoy. Its a fantastic WR draft upcoming.
You can disagree all you'd like, it doesn't change the reality of the situation. We picked #13. Take a look at the players drafted between picks #14 and #32. Almost none of them are making a significant impact. The OLs are playing a lot of snaps, but outside of a couple guys who have played well, their play is somewhere between average and bad. And we would not be starting a rookie OL consistently.
Looking beyond the OLs, few guys are consistently starting and making an impact. Dillon Thieneman is providing solid play at safety for Chicago. Chris Johnson is providing solid play at CB for Miami. K.C. Concepcion is starting, but he's only averaging around 30 yards per game as a receiver thus far. (For reference, Tyler Higbee is averaging 41 receiving yards per game.) Omar Cooper flashed last week, but he's been injured for most of the year.
So the actual rookie class shows few guys making a significant immediate impact, particularly at positions where we have need. Now, if you look at guys who weren't available for us to draft, the list might grow, but it doesn't matter. They weren't available. And if you cherry-pick guys drafted in other rounds, sure, you can find some dudes making an impact. But the Rams aren't drafting with the benefit of hindsight. Rookies generally don't make significant immediate impacts. Teams that have to start them usually get an average or worse player because rookies are still adjusting to the NFL. Players like Puka and Cooper Kupp are very rare.
And yet, there are 31 other teams trying to win a Super Bowl. So the odds were always stacked against us winning it. Spending our first round pick on a rookie was not going to meaningfully change that.
Right. Somebody always shakes lose. That's why the Steelers have spent years trying to replace Big Ben and are still stuck with a washed up band aid. That's why the Colts still can't find a consistent QB nearly a decade after Andrew Luck retired. The Rams didn't want to be having to desperately search for a competent player at the position in the post-Stafford years. We'll see if they made the right call with Simpson.
None of it is guaranteed. And we're seeing that having the best roster on paper guarantees us nothing when so many key players get injured. How is a rookie changing any of that?
You're right that I don't understand what you mean when you refer to a "disease" hitting the team. Your opinion that we can't think about the future and go all in is not one I agree with. In fact, I think it's a potentially disastrous mindset when you have an aging, near-retirement QB.
But your view still appears to ignore that the draft is a crapshoot and mistakenly banks on rookies to address these so-called failure points as if it were some type of guarantee when most rookies don't make immediate impacts. And especially not on stacked rosters.
Filling a possible hole with a body doesn't mean that the hole is really filled if the player isn't playing well.
No, it doesn't.
It's the opposite, in fact.. the more shots you take, the more likely you are to hit on something. That's how they've built this roster.
There are other built-in assumption about players *not* contributing as rookies.. which is a flawed approach.
My point is they too away ANY OPPORTUNITY to have their first round picks for this year and next and this year's second round pick to contribute this year.
That was flawed thinking.
Trent McDuffie is contributing. More than a rookie would. So if the focus is on short-term contributions, we shouldn't have drafted somebody. We should have traded the picks for proven players. But you don't want that. Neither do I. Because we both recognize that building for the future matters as much as building for the present. And if that is true, the fact that Simpson and Klare aren't playing right now isn't that important if they contribute in major ways in future years. We'll see if they do.
Who says I don't want to do that?
I've said that their draft strategy was wrong.. meaning using all that draft capital on two players who they knew would not be able to contribute this season.
They should either have been looking for situations where players were much more likely to contribute.. WR & STs specifically because we all knew that WR was a potential failure point.. as well as more competition potentially at RB and ILB.
OR..
They could've used the picks in trades... and I would not have been mad about that.
They already have a nice basis for the future.. and.. after this season? They're gonna have to make some changes, either way.. but I think they'd be just fine in the future because they have shown, again and again, that they really do well with multiple mid-round draft picks.
And who says the guys you trade for can't be part of the future?
They clearly needed more athleticism on the roster for special teams, specifically, and they clearly needed more and more athletic WR additions.
I just think that it was a mistake to basically say, "yeah.. our roster is so good we don't need to try and get contributions from our first two draft picks."