Medical flags could plop top center Dickerson into Rams lap in draft

The LA Rams are looking for an offensive center in the 2021 NFL Draft. That’s no secret. What you may not realize is the fact that a top center may fall to the Rams at 57. Wouldn’t that be something?

There aren’t many centers the size of Alabama’s Landon Dickerson in the NFL, and perhaps on the planet, either.

At 6-foot-6 and 335 pounds, you can pick your cliche to insert here: a mountain of a man, a grizzly bear of a man, a behemoth of a man, a human fireplug, a Titan. There’s no denying he’s a massive mauler, whose style of ferocious play reminds NFL scouts of the Indianapolis Colts’ Quenton Nelson.

If he were to be drafted by the LA Rams, he would almost certainly be new offensive line coach Kevin Carberry’s dream addition.  Imagine adding this year’s winner of the Rimington Award as the top center in the collegiate ranks to seamlessly fill the shoes of the now-departed Rams center Andrew Blythe.

And while we are on the subject of collegiate accolades, Dickerson is also the co-Jacobs Award winner along with Alabama teammate Alex Leatherwood as the best blocker in the SEC. And he’s a unanimous first-team AP All-American, to boot.

Ahh, but he will never be available at where the Rams pick in round two of the 2021 NFL Draft, will he?  I mean, the 57th pick of the draft is very deep into day two, and he will surely be off the board by the time the Rams are on the clock, though, right? Not necessarily.

As the draft approaches, there’s a school of thought out there, draft-inspired whispers,  that teams might be a bit hesitant about selecting Dickerson because of medical concerns surrounding his recent spate of injuries.  Medical flags and all that. They dropped prospects in the 2020 NFL Draft like rocks off a tall building. And now, Dickerson faces that same bane heading into the 2021 NFL Draft. Medical flags can shatter the dreams of NFL hopefuls.

After all, he did miss parts of four college seasons, with a torn ACL of the right knee in 2016; a season-ending right ankle injury in 2017; a left ankle sprain that kept him off the gridiron for most of the 2018 season, and a torn left knee ACL suffered late in the 2020 season. That particular injury kept him out of showing his stuff at this year’s Senior Bowl.

One torn knee ACL might give pause, but both knees? Some draft experts are even saying he could be a physically-unable-to-perform (PUP list) candidate who might not be fully rehabbed enough to start the season.

His upcoming medical evaluation will be telling.

That all says “slides down” in the draft to me. . . where he just maybe possibly could (hopefully) fall in the Rams lap. And the Rams have many traits in the draft, one of which is blowing past medical flags. This could get very interesting.