The LA Rams drafted like the NFL’s version of Moneyball

Downtown Bobby Brown

Of course, I can’t miss out on the opportunity to talk a bit about that 6-foot-4 321-pound defensive tackle from the Texas A&M Aggies, Bobby Brown. Brown is a huge mountain of a man who loves to crack the pads, shed the blockers, and drop anyone with the football on his arse. He’s football incarnate, and he’s heading to the LA Rams roster.

While playing in 29 games, Brown had plenty of action with 57 tackles, 10.5 tackles for a loss, six quarterback sacks, and even one pass defensed. He has all the size and power that the Rams could have hoped for on the defensive line. And yes, Brown is one more ‘off-the-charts’ athlete. His Relative Athletic Score is phenomenal, sitting at 9.82. That is the second-best score of any DT in this draft class.

How did he react to the news?

It was pretty obvious that the Rams have pivoted from a film-review team to a film plus data analytics sort of drafting team. It’s also somewhat obvious that the Rams tactics were not well received by many.

But the true result of any draft is what happens on the football field. Whether or not you agree with who the Rams drafted, nobody truly knows the outcome until several football seasons have been played. And for what it’s worth, if the Rams are taking rookies from the draft and redshirting them as a rule, I’m completely okay with choosing athletic freaks for that role.

The LA Rams are changing the rules as well by finding quality players who were overlooked using traditional evaluation methods. Of course, quality is what we will say later. For now? Let’s just say Moneyball and let it go at that.