Titans Trade First Overall Pick to Rams
New city, new team, new outlook. The Los Angeles Rams officially staked their claim to a new football era today, making a blockbuster trade with the Tennessee Titans that now sees the Rams holding the first overall pick in this year’s NFL draft.
The Rams received the number one pick along with a fourth-rounder and a sixth-rounder (113th and 177th overall respectively). The Titans scored a top-heavy bevy of picks, including the Rams’ former selection at number fifteen overall, two second-rounders (43rd and 45th overall), a third-rounder (76th overall) and a first- and third-rounder in 2017.
Recent draft history has suggested that it is almost always better to have more picks than higher picks; a lesson the Rams were on the beneficial side of when the Redskins gave up a king’s ransom to draft Robert Griffin III in 2012.
That year, the Rams traded a sure-fire franchise quarterback who was anything but for such starters as DT Michael Brockers, CB Janoris Jenkins and WR Stedman Bailey, among others. Washington fans like to argue that, since that time, they have made the playoffs two times to the Rams’ zero, but it was certainly no thanks to that hubristic trade.
This trade-off isn’t quite on that level, but LA’s willingness to hedge so much of its future on one man should come with a word of caution. But you don’t make a move like this without knowing exactly who you want to take, and the smart money has already linked quarterback Carson Wentz to the Rams, a team that enters the draft with Case Keenum’s name listed first on the depth chart.
Meanwhile, Tennessee now practically holds a monopoly on the second round. With three selections all within twelve picks of each other, the Titans suddenly hold a lot of bargaining power with teams willing to trade back, should the Titans wish to pounce back into the top ten to snag a top-tier prospect.
