Draft meetings jump-start Rams’ offseason

On stage at the Youtube Theater, Rams general manager Les Snead turned to the crowd of season ticket holders at Rams Revealed Live and asked what he should do with the team’s first-round draft pick. A chorus of suggestions rose up, so many that they rendered each other indiscernible.

“You see,” Snead said, grinning, “this is exactly like a draft meeting.”

The Rams’ held their first such meeting on Monday, jump-starting the next phase of their offseason as prospects gather this week in Indianapolis for the NFL draft combine. As has become their custom in recent years, the Rams won’t send any executives, coaches or scouts to Lucas Oil Stadium, just their medical staff to perform physicals.

Regardless, the Rams brain trust begins the work of crystalizing the Rams’ draft board this week, from meetings discussing the merits of certain prospects to virtually recording measurables from the combine as new data points.

And the Rams could end up using a first-round pick for the first time since 2016, No. 19 overall to be exact.

Head coach Sean Mcvay joked last week about whether the Rams would actually use the pick, or trade it for some other asset. Like the 2017 pick, which was used to move up to No. 1 and draft Jared Goff. Or 2018, which was traded for Brandin Cooks. Or 2020 and 2021, which turned into Jalen Ramsey, like 2022 and 2023 turned into Matthew Stafford.

Then there was 2019, when the Rams traded down from No. 31 three times to end up at No. 61.

“I think that’s the great thing if you sit at 19, conceptually, is you’re going to have a bunch of players probably fall to you who you had as top-15 picks,” COO Kevin Demoff told reporters. “You may have the chance if someone falls who you have as a top-eight pick and they fall to 14-15, are you going up and getting them? Or you may have 4-5 players fall to you that you didn’t expect to be there and you feel comfortable trading back.”

— Adam Grosbard

PAYTON COY ON BRONCOS QB >>

Sean Payton isn’t providing anything definitive on Russell Wilson’s time in Denver but the coach did hint at the Broncos moving on from the veteran when he suggested the team cannot afford to miss on “the next one” at quarterback.

Payton met with the media at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis on Tuesday and said the club should know by the end of next week what direction they’ll take at quarterback. TAG UNLIKELY FOR JACOBS >> A year after the Raiders placed the franchise tag on running back Josh Jacobs, new Las Vegas general manager Tom Telesco said that likely wouldn’t happen again.

“As a GM, you never want to take anything off the table, but I don’t anticipate using that tag this year,” he said at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.

Telesco said he would like to bring back Jacobs, who led the NFL in rushing in 2022.