FanPost

The grass is always greener

The Rams traded away multiple picks in the 2016 and 2017 drafts to move up to draft Jared Goff. Before that move was made, I wrote a retrospective look about whether such a trade would have been good for the Tampa Bay Bucs back in 2004. How has lackluster Goff been compared to other players the Rams could have drafted instead?

The Rams used the picks they received in return from the Titans to select Pharoh Cooper, Temarrick Hemingway and Mike Thomas(after a trade down). Cooper might be the 3rd WR to begin the season.

The first round pick at 15 given up by the Rams probably would have been used on a WR. Here are 3 possible targets:

Corey Coleman (Browns): Slowed by a hamstring injury and inconsistent in camp due to mental mistakes and conditioning issues. Talented, but like many rookie WRs needs development.

Josh Doctson (Redskins): Has a strained Achilles which has slowed him down in preseason.

Laquon Treadwell (Vikings): Projected to be 4th or 5th on depth chart, lackluster so far with some drop problems.

Players that the Rams could have selected with their two second round picks (no. 43 and 45) include:

Michael Thomas (WR, Saints): Generated buzz in camp, but currently projected to still be behind Willie Snead on the depth chart to begin the season. As an aside, Snead was an UDFA in 2014 and released by the WR needy Cleveland Browns, which illustrates how you don't always need high picks to get contributing players and cutting UDFAs can sometimes turn out to be a mistake.

Nick Martin (C, Texans): An ankle injury ended his season and landed him on IR.

Mackensie Alexander (CB, Vikings): Mixed bag with athletic plays and bad penalties. He's buried on the depth chart due to the Vikings being stacked with a strong CB position group. Zimmer tends to bring CBs along slowly, so he is unlikely to be forced into action too soon unless there are injuries. If the Rams had drafted him, I'm not confident he could have been relied on to play a prominent role in the 2016 season.

Tyler Boyd (WR, Bengals): Hyped during camp and the Bengals seem high on him, but he has had minimal impact so far in the preseason games. Projected to start the season as a backup, though possibly could move up as the season goes along. Just as with Coleman, rookie WRs frequently start slowly. It will be interesting to see if Tajae Sharpe continues to play well, because the Rams potentially could have selected him and skipped all the other early round WRs and still gotten good value.

With the 3rd round pick traded to the Titans, these are some players I thought were candidates:

Austin Hooper (TE, Falcons): Has had some bad drops so far and has been inconsistent.

Braxton Miller (WR, Texans): Is off to a solid start as a slot WR. Probably redundant at least for 2016 with Pharoh Cooper. Comparing the careers of these two players could be something to watch down the road.

Nick Vannett (TE, Seahawks): Slowed by ankle injury. The Rams like Higbee, so missing out on Hooper and Vannett at least to this point hasn't been a negative.

Graham Glasgow (C, Lions): Also dealing with injury in camp, so far he hasn't been able to unseat Travis Swanson as the starter. Swanson was one of the lowest graded centers in the NFL last season. Probably not a slam dunk that he would have beaten out Barnes to start to begin the season if he had been taken by the Rams.

So, as you can see, even though Goff's performance level has been disappointing so far, the alternative package of players the Rams could have obtained in 2016 haven't exactly taken the league by storm either. The 2017 picks will have to wait to see. Maybe after it rains some more, we can take another look at the grass at the end of the season.