How Shane Ray and Randy Gregory Effect the St. Louis Rams Draft

Something that always goes into drafting a player for your franchise is how do they conduct themselves off the field? As you are aware, Shane Ray and Randy Gregory haven’t had the best roads leading up to the Draft this year. Both were projected top 10 picks before the NFL Combine, but now both have seen to fall off the radar somewhat since their incidents. As for the St. Louis Rams, this can definitely cause some problems during the Draft.

As you can guess, in the NFL today, pass rushers are very important! In a league where Quarterbacks are the focal points of offenses, it’s important to get them off their spots and make them run. That’s why Gregory and Ray were such high touted prospects. They are both very productive pass rushers coming out of college.

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Now to my point, how do their off-field incidents directly effect the Rams? As you take a look into the top 10 of the Draft, you can see that there are a lot of teams that have needs at DE/OLB. The teams with needs there are the Jacksonville Jaguars (#3), Oakland Raiders (#4), Washington Redskins (#5), New York Jets (#6),  Chicago Bears (#7), and the Atlanta Falcons (#8). This causes a great deal of problems for the Rams because now all these teams might refrain from taking a risk on either Ray or Gregory. All of these teams listed all pick before the Rams and a lot of them have identical needs as the Rams also. This can cause a lot of the top players for the Rams to get drafted before they even have a chance to draft them.

So what do you do if you’re the Rams? The Rams could see what teams are asking for their pick and possibly trade up to see if they can get the player(s) they have highest on their board. Another option is to trade back in the draft. This could be a very viable option for the Rams because they have a lot of work to do on the Offensive Line and this could help them get more picks and try to grab a couple of more lineman in the draft than expected, or other players they like and use those picks to trade up in the Draft. Another reason to trade back is that there aren’t a great deal of elite prospects in this years draft. The elite prospects are mainly quarterbacks, wide receivers, and defensive lineman. So this could cause a lot of trades within in the first round and could be nearly impossible for the Rams to get the guy who they want.

If Ray and Gregory wouldn’t have gotten into any trouble off the field this Draft Board probably looks a lot different and probably plays into the Rams favor into getting someone they want. Now since two top prospects have red flags about their character off the field it shortens every draft board for every team. Hopefully the Rams will have the player they want when it is their pick, but only time will tell.

Next: St. Louis Rams Draft Rumors: Dolphins Looking to Trade Up With Rams

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