LA Rams convert two pre-draft meetings into draft day selections

A few social media commentators had proclaimed that the LA Rams do not draft players who they choose to meet with prior to the NFL Draft earlier this year.. I don’t agree. And that’s certainly not true in 2021, as the LA Rams met with both WR Tutu Atwell and TE/WR Jacob Harris prior to selecting them during the 2021 NFL Draft.

Of course, it’s likely that a number of other players who the Rams emerged from those meetings with interest in adding to the roster simply were not on the board when the Rams found them to be of the correct value.

But the reality is that the Rams didn’t have a non-disclosure agreement. In the end, the two dozen or so pre-drafted meetings were everything advertised, a virtual interview with the Rams personnel executives and coaches to determine fit.

Talk about a pressure cooker interview? The prospects not only had to nail it with the LA Rams but with any team who asked for the interview. Thankfully, these two nailed their interviews, which is a feat unto itself because it was a virtual meeting.

Some have argued that the LA Rams tried to move up in the draft to claim D’Wayne Eskridge, but were unable to meet the asking price of doing so. Whether true or not, the LA Rams did choose Louisville WR Tutu Atwell, a 5-foot-9 165-pound rookie receiver who has been a headline simply because the young man is not the typical size and weight for an NFL wide receiver.

No doubt that came up in the meeting, and Atwell must have nailed the response. Did he use Yoda’s response? ‘Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not! For my ally is the Force.” Say, is Tutu Atwell a Jedi Knight?

So now we’re talking the other extreme. That is the 6-foot-5 athletic savant who can be either a tight end or a wide receiver named Jacob Harris from the University of Central Florida (UCF). Harris was likely asked to meet with the Rams because he is a relatively newcomer to the game of football.

While all of the size and athleticism are spot on, Harris likely had to prove to the LA Rams that Harris knew football, and was not in immediate need of a football academy to master the game itself.

We know how it all turned out. The Rams were satisfied enough to select both Atwell and Harris in the 2021 NFL Draft. For many, mastering that virtual interview was difficult enough. But for Tutu Atwell and Jacob Harris, the easy part is over. Now the real work begins.