Round 3: Rams select Bradley Fletcher - CB - Iowa, who?

by Ryan Van Bibber on Apr 26, 2009 9:30 AM CDT in 2009 NFL draft

Not at all surprised the Rams went with a cornerback here, but nobody outside the Rams draft room saw that coming. So who is Bradley Fletcher?

He's a big, fast, physical CB, what Spagnuolo likes in his CBs. I think when you get to this point in the draft, the divergence among conventional wisdom and draft boards is pretty wide. The Justin King pick surprised everyone last year. From his NFL.com Scouting report:

Excellent size and athleticism for the position; should become effective jamming receivers as a press corner. Gives good effort on every play. Mirrors even the fastest receivers down the sideline. Closes on the ball quickly when playing off his man. Good vertical and strength to high-point the ball in traffic. Fair hands for the interception, and has the coordination and arm length to knock passes away without drawing a flag. Physical enough with receivers to knock the ball out after the catch.

As far as weaknesses, some of them can be ironed out with coaching and hard work, playing too physical, better backpedal, etc. and they could move him to free safety, never know.

Rob Rang and NFLDraftScout.com had him ranked as the #11 CB on the board.

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definitely against this pick….we had way bigger positions of need besides CB.

by rams since day1 on Apr 26, 2009 10:39 AM CDT reply actions

It's a big area of need

Probably not as big as WR, but I think the team was looking to get the best player that also fills a need. Maybe they didn't like any of the wideouts available. You don't know whether the picks are good ones until several years later in most cases. Later round picks often aren't immediate impact picks. I bet we sign a WR that can help us in free agency.

The Personal Finance Playbook.

by Toddius on Apr 26, 2009 11:43 AM CDT up reply actions

I like the pick

Big, physical, was the best CB in the Shrine Bowl. Did I mention tall? Look at the WR’s in our conference. We NEED a big guy like this. You can argue DT or a WR, but at third round and looking at the board who’s available at the 3rd, I can see why we took this kid. Fletcher will start IMHO and they will move Hill to nickle duty, Hill’s gone in a year I think anyway. This guy has the size to play Safety too, so maybe he will be filling Atogwe’s shoes when he gets too expensive to keep, which will be soon.

by ken in nj on Apr 26, 2009 10:53 AM CDT reply actions

here's more on fletcher

from http://tinyurl.com/clol5o

Beyond the Boxscore

by erik on Apr 26, 2009 1:12 PM CDT reply actions

TERRIBLE

This has been one bad decision after another. I like our 1st and 4th rounder. All other rounds are wrong. We need A skilled and animalistic offensive line as well as immediate help on D. In order we could have had Smith Sebastian Vollmer, Michael Johnson Dorel Scott, Duke Robinson, Demetrius Byrd, and Zach Follet. We could remove the franchise tag from Incognizant , saving his salary cap space. We could invite a couple of FA WRs to camp. Johnson and Scott would absolutely Bolster the D line w/Johnson able to play OL as well. We could start Smith Bell Brown, Robinson, and Vollmer on the O line. This with our OL reserves would allow us to leave OL alone for 4-5 years at least. We could use next year to get a quarterback of the future.

by dbcouver on Apr 26, 2009 6:17 PM CDT reply actions