Grading out the Rams NFL Draft

The NFL Draft is over and now is the time to really dissect what your favorite team has done over the past 48 hours.  It really isn't fair to grade what a team has done because not one of these players has even put on a helmet yet in the NFL so you never really know what you got until they get out on the field.  That being said it is fun to take a look at what the national pundits are saying and I will put in my two cents on each selection by Rams G.M. Billy Devaney.

Pete Prisco over at CBS Sportsline has given the Rams a B- praising the Rams for their selection of James Laurinaitis but questioning whether the pick of Jason Smith was better than going with Eugene Monroe.

Charles Robinson over at Yahoo.com has given the Rams a B praising the Rams for getting inmmediate help at the top of the draft and he sees some potential with QB Keith Null.

I am pretty much in line with everyone else.  I think the Rams did good with this draft.  I believe the pick of Jason Smith was something they had to do.  There was no choice from my perspective.

To me the entire draft grade, if you will, comes down to James Laurinaitis.  If Laurinaitis becomes the solid starting linebacker that the Rams believe he will be, then the Rams draft will be a huge success.  The question to me that will always reamin is why did the Rams go with Laurinaitis over Rey Maualuga from USC?

Maualuga was graded higher over Laurinaitis by just about everyone in the NFL.  The only difference was that there are some in the league who believe that Maualuga has some charachter issues while Laurinaitis does not appear to have any.  If I were Billy Devaney I would have gone with Maualuga or even done something more daring and selected Eben Britton the offensive tackle from Arizona or Ron Brace the defensive tackle from Boston College.   I believe all three of those players might have made a bigger impact than Laurinaitis will make.  Time will tell.  I hope I am wrong but keep those three names in mind to see how things will shake out.

The biggest disappointment to me in the Rams draft came in the third round with the selection of Bradley Fletcher a cornerback out of Iowa.  Fletcher seems like a pick that the Rams would make in past drafts.  Someone who is a "project" and has a charachter issue with an off-field incident during college.  The Rams have needs at wide-receiver and running back at this point in the draft and they pick a cornerback who is considered "raw".  That seems like a reach to me.  A third round pick should be someone who should be counted on to contribute immediately.  It doesn't seem like Fletcher will.

As questionable as the third round was to me Dorell Scott was a really good pick in the fourth round.  Scott was a productive interior defensive lineman in college at Clemson and looks like he can be an instant contributor with the Rams.  That is the kind of player you should be looking at in the later rounds of the draft for a bad football team.

One of the other main things I will always question about this draft is why the Rams waited until the fifth round to draft a wide receiver?   They are so devoid of talent at that position that it just is shocking to me that they would wait until this point to draft someone like Brooks Foster from North Carolina.  Having only 6 touchdowns in his entire college career, it is a little scary to me to be counting on someone like him to help contribute this season.

When you get to the tail end of the draft it is always roll the dice time.  The Rams decided to roll the dice on West Texas A&M quarterback Keith Null.  Null in most of the rankings I looked at was rated below people like Chase Daniel and Graham Harrell who were both uber-productive quarterbacks in college.  I have never watched Null so I can't speak to his ability but I will say that quarterbacks have been known to come from smaller backgrounds.  Ask Kurt Warner and Tony Romo about that.

The Rams final pick was Chris Ogbonnaya a running back from Texas.  This is another position where the Rams needed help and they waited till the very end to pick up a potential back-up running back.  You never know if you can hit with someone like Ogbonnaya but he doesn't seem like someone who will contribute right away.

All in all this wasn't a horrible draft but it will ultimately come down to how many of these players selected will contribute immediately to a team that was 2-14 last season.  If the Rams get 5 of these 7 to make a contribution then this draft was an A+ draft if they only get one or two to contribute then this draft was a D.

Most everyone knows the backgrounds of Jason Smith and James Laurinaitis so all this week I will go in depth with picks 3-7 and we'll take a look at the upsides and downsides of all the selections.