Let's see - you got nothing done in free agency on offense except add a career-injured wideout, and treat us in the first round of the draft with the third-best defensive tackle. Feel the season ticket renewals! Going to be thrilling to watch the Rams struggle to crack the 13-point mark every week yet again in 2012!
Let's really break the Rams' first round down:
1. They didn't trade up for Justin Blackmon. I'm actually fine with that. Blackmon comes with too many questions. If they didn't consider Blackmon an elite enough player to make a high first-round consideration on, I don't argue with that position a lot. But they still need offensive playmakers.
2. RamView would have taken Morris Claiborne at #6. He was still one of the elite six players in the draft. A lot of analysts ranked him above Blackmon anyway. (For instance, #2 by Pro Football Weekly.) Put him with Finnegan, Fletcher, Mikell and Stewart, and the Rams were shaping up to have a shutdown secondary and would have been a LOT tougher against the pass in '12. But would still need an offensive playmaker.
3. When they traded down, they traded to right behind two teams, in their own division, thought to be looking hard at Michael Floyd. And what do you know, Floyd went the pick before them. Leaving the Rams still needing offensive playmakers.
4. Then, at 14, David DeCastro would have been a fantastic value. One of the best guards to come out of college in many years. They could have plugged him right in at left guard, where he would have seriously upgraded the Rams' run-blocking and rushing game. It would have been like adding an offensive playmaker. Instead, still need one.
5. Positives on taking Brockers: though it is decidedly not their biggest need, which would be offensive playmakers, defensive tackle is definitely a need. Brockers should step in immediately as a run-stuffer, definitely a need. The Rams' tackling in the back seven actually improved last year, but it was nearly impossible to notice because the middle of the line got overwhelmed. Fred Robbins got too old too quick and got worn down to a nub by double-teams, and there simply was never enough talent next to him to make teams pay for that. Brockers may be the biggest DT the Rams have had since the dreaded summer days of Kirksey and Osborne. Oh, he'll tie up blockers. But the Rams still need offensive playmakers.
6. Negatives on taking Brockers: one of the problems is the amount of convincing it will take to make me think that drafting Brockers is a good move.
* One of the big draft no-no's we learned about five years ago is that you don't draft 3-4 DEs expecting to turn them into 4-3 DTs. They tried it here with Adam Carriker, and he stank. Move him to 3-4 DE at Washington, though, and lookee here! Looks like a good player again. Brockers played all of last season as a very large 3-4 DE. That's essentially his entire high-level football experience. Sure, he's very young and can certainly learn a new position, but where is the evidence that he will indeed make for an excellent 4-3 DT in the NFL? It sure isn't on tape.
* School and position are important. Let's start the positive way. USC consistently puts out good offensive linemen. Miami produces good tight ends and running backs. Penn State produces good linebackers. Purdue produces good pass rushers. Wisconsin and Iowa produce excellent o-linemen. Ohio State tends to produce good o-linemen and DBs. But it goes both ways. Penn State has produced massive busts at defensive line. (One good thing about the Brockers pick - it means the Rams aren't taking Devon Still.) Nebraska's been a bust minefield, especially in the St. Louis Rams era. And LSU is not distinguishing itself in the area of producing defensive linemen, where Glenn Dorsey and Tyson Jackson have been major disappointments in the last 5 years. Whether that's Kansas City misusing them (again, failure to convert college 3-4 players into other positions), or a program that manages to produce players that just look good until they hit the pros, I guess we'll have to find out.
* We're told of Brockers' magnificent physical tools. But how well does he use and maintain them? His Combine performance was one of the worst of any of the DTs. You can factor some of that as being his size. Not a lot of 320-pound men are going to crack 5.0 in the 40-yard dash. (Dontari Poe wasn't available, anyway.) But it's coming out that he improved his performances nicely at his pro day, and it was because he lost some weight. Is that going to be an issue for him? He got pretty out of shape in the space of about six weeks. He's put on, what, 70 pounds since he arrived at LSU? Does he know when to quit? Will his body let him? Is he going to show up for June minicamp at 350? He already had issues with endurance in college. Sure, he'll be part of a rotation in the pros, but he's supposed to take the majority of snaps and be on the field late in big games to make big plays. Will he be lined up on 4th-and-1 in the 4th quarter, or will he be on the bench taking oxygen? I guess I'm a little stunned that the Rams graded a player who could easily have weight issues and endurance issues to the point it downgrades his athletic performance as the #6 player in the entire draft. The Rams may have taken him as a building block, but will he hold up?
I "get" the logic behind drafting Michael Brockers. When I compare drafting him to drafting Ryan Pickett, I mean it in a good way. Charlie Armey drafted Pickett in 2001. He was very young then, like Brockers is now, and seeing his potential, Armey intended for him to develop into a role. Which he did, becoming an 11-year starter in the NFL and an excellent run-stopper. Nope, he didn't do it for the Rams, but that's neither his nor Armey's fault. Armey made the right pick there (one for three that round, woo-hoo!).
But Armey had a Super Bowl team, and extra draft picks, giving him the luxury to take a project player like Pickett. He also had more than a few offensive playmakers. The Rams have a luxury of picks tonight, in part because of the trade down to #14 and Brockers last night. But I don't feel they had the luxury of starting the damn draft with a project player at freaking defensive tackle who doesn't inspire with his conditioning.
If Jeff Fisher coaches Michael Brockers up into becoming the next Albert Haynesworth, then great. He and Les Snead are geniuses. All I know is, the Rams have drafted plenty of players in St. Louis and left fans the promise that they'd be coached up to greatness. It's time for somebody to deliver on that damn pledge, or this pick, riskier on its face than trading up for Blackmon or drafting Claiborne or possibly even Floyd, is not going to work.
And the Rams still don't have any offensive playmakers.
-$-
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