The Los Angels Rams did it again.<\/p>\n
They threw groupthink into the trash can. They shot their shot.<\/p>\n
Rocking the NFL draft Thursday night, L.A.\u2019s braintrust of Les Snead and Sean McVay spent the 13th pick on a quarterback who started only 15 college games, Alabama\u2019s Ty Simpson.<\/p>\n
Hold on now. The Rams did what?<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t L.A. eager to squeeze a second Super Bowl-winning year out of 38-year-old quarterback Matt Stafford, who would benefit from immediate help at a few spots?<\/p>\n
And with No. 1 receiver Puka Nacua\u2019s entering a holistic rehab clinic recently after another bruising season and No. 2 receiver Davante Adams headed toward his 34th birthday, wouldn\u2019t drafting a receiver have made sense?<\/p>\n
Yes and yes.<\/p>\n
And didn\u2019t veteran NFL draft analysts such as the NFL Network\u2019s Daniel Jeremiah, the former Eagles, Ravens and Browns scout from El Cajon, and The Athletic\u2019s Dane Brugler place Simpson at 37th and 41st on their top-50 lists?<\/p>\n
Yes and yes.<\/p>\n
But Snead and McVey aren\u2019t conventional thinkers.<\/p>\n
This is the tandem that, led by Snead, the general manager, dealt more first-round draft chips over a five-year span than many NFL clubs do over decades.<\/p>\n
And it worked out so well that Snead that when he went to the Super Bowl parade, he wore a T-shirt that read, in effect, to heck with them draft picks.<\/p>\n
Simpson hopes his next L.A. football chapter goes better than the one four months ago.<\/p>\n
Indiana dealt him a miserable Rose Bowl defeat at Pasadena, in a playoff game. In fairness to Simpson, who looked tentative and never got into a rhythm on a wet field, Bama\u2019s offensive line had a bad game. Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who went first Thursday, to the Raiders, shredded a subpar Bama defense, putting additional heat on Simpson.<\/p>\n
Heady and agile, Simpson recalls former NFL quarterback Brian Hoyer, who started for eight NFL franchises but was mostly a very good backup.<\/p>\n
Snead and McVey must see the 6-foot-1, 211-pound Simpson as comparable to Brock Purdy.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old is said to be wicked smart, like Purdy, the 49ers star who led San Francisco to a Super Bowl less than two years after going last in the 2022 draft out of Iowa Sate.<\/p>\n
If Snead and McVey got this right, the Rams have a potential Super Bowl-level QB in the fold who can learn from Stafford for at least one year.<\/p>\n
Then again, when Snead and McVey moved on from Jared Goff to Stafford, it was Stafford\u2019s powerful arm and ability to wing lasers on the move that enticed them. Those clubs probably aren\u2019t in Simpson\u2019s bag.<\/p>\n
The Rams do keep us on our toes.<\/p>\n
Quick hits<\/p>\n
The Chargers were fortunate: Powerful defensive end Akheem Mesidor was there at 22. General manager Joe Hortiz and Jim Harbaugh wisely took him. He\u2019ll be effective against the run and an adequate rusher.<\/p>\n
+ I love running back Jerimayeh Love\u2019s game and like receiver Carnell Tate\u2019s polished skills. And they seem like terrific people too. Both were overdrafted. Love will succeed. But No. 3, where the guaranteed money is massive, is too high for a running back unless he\u2019s Jim Brown, Marshall Faulk or thereabouts. The Titans should\u2019ve drafted an offensive tackle.<\/p>\n
+ Cowboys draft overseer Will McClay landed the best defender in this draft class, Ohio State safety Caleb Downs, at No. 11. Downs is a football savant. He sees the game as well as safety Eric Weddle, the two-time All-Pro and Super Bowl winner who went 37th to San Diego in 2007.<\/p>\n
+ I like that former San Diego State WR Darren Mougey is starting in the lines. For the second time in two Jets drafts,\u00a0 the GM took a lineman in the top 10. \u00a0Last April it was Missouri\u2019s\u00a0 Armand Membou at No. 7. The right tackle had a fine rookie year, starting all 17 games. Thursday, it was Texas Tech DE David Bailey at No. 2. Ex Steelers and San Diego Chargers tackle Max Starks, now with ESPN, said Bailey\u2019s \u201cfirst-step quickness is going going to kill a lot of these tackles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angels Rams did it again. They threw groupthink into the trash can. They shot their shot.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75,77],"class_list":{"0":"post-283262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-san-diego","9":"tag-san-diego-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego-news","11":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}