How Mariota Staying At Oregon Affects Rams’ Plans

It has just been announced that Oregon Quarterback Marcus Mariota will not enter the 2014 NFL Draft. Mariota was ranked 5th on Mel Kiper Jr’s big board on espn.com and was predicted to be a top ten pick. Hopefully he doesn’t suffer the Matt Barkley effect.

How does that affect the Rams? Well thanks to the Washington Redskins, the Rams currently hold the third over ally pick in next year’s draft and with Houston and Jacksonville ahead of the Rams being predicted to take Jadeveon Clowney and Teddy Bridgewater, Mariota was the next can’t miss player in the draft.

The Rams currently sit at third and you can bet all your money that they want out of that spot and would like to grab some more picks while they can. With Mariota not coming out, the chances of that happening just got a lot smaller.

The only way a team is going to trade up to number three and give up a lot of picks, is if they are picking up a franchise type player, and as there are others in the top ten, Mariota is a quarterback, and teams will do a lot to get that quarterback of the future e.g. Kevin Kolb and Matt Flynn.

The Rams best bet now is that Jadeveon Clowney falls to them that will get every team in the league calling in to the Rams war room. Clowney is supposed to be one of the best defensive prospects to come out of the college level in ten plus years. If Clowney falls to number three, you can bet teams will give an arm and a leg to get him.

There are still four weeks left and the Rams surely are not set in stone at the number three spot.  The Redskins aren’t a terrible team, and could steal a game or two in the final stretch, but as of right now that’s where the Rams stand.

Mariota not coming out this season may have spoiled spoiled the Rams’ plan to trade back from the top of the draft, but things always seem to work out for the better, and either way the Rams will end up with a top player.