LA Rams made these 7 ‘right calls’ over the offensive line

VII – Don’t draft linemen

As soon as the 2019 season was over, the call was made to draft offensive linemen in the 2020 NFL Draft. Not just via mock drafts, but outright demanding that the Rams do so.  The Rams were bludgeoned for months over the lack of attention towards their trenches.  And the consensus among most media concluded that the Rams’ success this year depended upon the team committing the 2020 NFL Draft to draft more offensive linemen.

We saw a completely different path to success for the Rams. We had pointed that the LA Rams signed up three offensive linemen in the 2018 NFL Draft with Joseph Noteboom, Brian Allen, and Jamil Demby. The team added two more offensive linemen in the 2019 NFL Draft with Bobby Evans and David Edwards. And then the team added two more offensive linemen midseason with the trade for IOL Austin Corbett and signing IOL Coleman Shelton from the Arizona Cardinals practice squad.

Not done yet

Even after adding seven offensive linemen over the span of two years, the Rams continued to add more offensive linemen in 2020 with a versatile offensive lineman Tremayne Anchrum and a solid center prospect in Cohl Cabral. So the Rams, without the use of any valuable picks in the 2020 NFL Draft, entered the season with nine relatively young offensive line prospects. And thanks to their persistent investment, the Rams had six of those players with the experience of starting in an NFL game.

The LA Rams didn’t draft offensive linemen because they didn’t need to do so. The organization had shopped for offensive linemen all along. While the team ran aground of serious repetitive injuries to the offensive linemen, the coaches and personnel offense that made those choices would only clog the roster by adding more rookies in 2020. The Rams, bursting with previous years players, entered the 2020 season with nine starters from 2019.