Rams Draft Review

1(1) - QB Sam Bradford, Oklahoma
I've already shared my reservations about Bradford. It's not that I dislike him, and I certainly want him to succeed now that he's a Ram. It's just that I can see the narrative that will be written in five years if his career is more Alex Smith than Peyton Manning, and the reasons that will be given as obvious then are being ignored right now.

2(33) - OT Rodger Saffold, Indiana
I said here I wanted them to go WR or OT here, and they did, just not with either of the guys that I wanted. I was absolutely shocked that Bruce Campbell fell as far as he did. Saffold was apparently a late riser, and his experience is absolutely a huge positive for him as a player. Getting a read on him is tricky... some people seem to think he's clearly a LT, and is weak as a run blocker, and others seem to think he may be too slow to be a LT, and will wind up as a RT or even moving inside. The Rams are talking about playing him at RT and inside, so make of that what you will.

I was pushing for Campbell or Brown, both more pure LT prospects, in part because I have absolutely zero faith that Jason Smith is going to be of any use to the Rams, given the concussion problems. I also have zero faith that Alex Barron is worth a darn, so basically, I figure the Rams have to start all over at tackle. That may not be a realistic stance; you can't draft a guy #2 overall and then immediately give up on him, but darned if I wasn't still hoping the Rams would draft Campbell in the 4th when he was still available. Anyway, Saffold is a good pick, and probably a better fit than Campbell or Brown, given that he's not a pure LT prospect, and may be a better fit to displace Barron immediately, and seriously, getting rid of Barron as a starter would be cause for joy.

3(65) - CB Jerome Murphy, South Florida
Murphy is another player who it's hard to get a good read on. One knock on him is that he's not very instinctive, but go elsewhere, and his instincts are considered a plus. He's an aggressive defender, both against the ball in the air and against the run, so hopefully the instincts actually are a plus. A non-instinctive aggressive corner is going to be toasted more often than marshmallows over a campfire.

4(99) - WR Mardy Gilyard, Cincinnati
I'm very optimistic about Gilyard. Apparently got knocked for "character issues" which consisted of losing his scholarship over academic performance, which ignores the fact that he worked his way back into school and onto the team, which says something far more positive about his character than the original academic struggles say anything negative.

Gilyard's exactly the kind of guy I love. Decent enough measureables (with one caveat), but tremendous performance on the field. He's not the biggest or the fastest, but he's certainly athletic enough, and he got the job done at Cincinnati. The one issue is that he ran slow at the combine, but rebounded with a better time at his pro day. That's suspicious, though it probably just means he had a bad day at the combine. Still, I really like this pick.

5(132) - TE Mike Hoomanawanui, Illinois
Not so excited here. Good size, good blocker, not much of a receiver. The red flag for me is that he wasn't even a full-time starter as a senior. Sure, there are players who aren't given enough playing time in college for one reason or another, but when a team doesn't want to start a player, how does that say anything good about his prospects for the next level?

5(149) - DE Hall Davis, Louisiana-Lafayette
It's not exactly a stretch to predict that a 5th rounder will be a washout. But I firmly believe that Davis will be a washout. There's nothing about his performance or his measureables that suggest that there's much to him.

6(170) - TE Fendi Onobon, Houston
Big, fast, strong, and caught two passes in college. Looked fabulous at Houston's pro day, but obviously hasn't performed on the field. Equally obviously, the Rams are hoping Onobon is another Antonio Gates. Anything is possible, but I'm drawn to the difference between Gates and Onobon as basketball players... Gates was a better baskeball player, so he'd shown something while actually playing a game, at least.

6(189) - LB/DE Eugene Sims, West Texas A&M
Has the height, but not the weight to play DE. Needs to bulk up, and grow into his frame. Not really on a lot of people's radar. It's a late pick, so it's far from a problem to take fliers like Onobon and Sims, but I do have to wonder... how many guys can you afford to carry who are projects?

7(211) - CB Marquis Johnson, Alabama
Slow for a corner, too small for safety. Probably the high end of expectation is that he'll stick around for a year or two as depth in the backfield.

7(226) - DE George Selvie, South Florida
His teammate on the other side, Jason Pierre-Paul, went in the 1st round. Selvie was awesome as a sophomore, and faded the last two years, though he remained productive, and at least one observer I read noted that Pierre-Paul was greatly assisted by the attention paid to Selvie on the other side. He's an intriguing option as a 7th rounder.

7(254) - Josh Hull, Penn State
All Big-10 as a senior, while playing in a linebacking group that included two other 2010 draftees. A pure two-down player, he's expected to be a good special teams player. I like this pick a lot for that reason, and because I like specialists. Give me a guy who can do one thing well, and let the coaches figure out how to leverage that, rather than the all-around mediocre guy.

Overall... well, who are we kidding? This Rams draft will be great if Bradford is great, and bad if he's bad.