LA Rams: Variants of Rams 1st round picks Multiverse

The LA Rams traded future first-round picks in order to draft the first overall pick of the 2016 NFL Draft. The same Rams traded future first-round picks in order to acquire defensive back, Jalen Ramsey. Another first-round draft pick was sent to the New England Patriots for wide receiver Brandon Cooks. And for the right to acquire veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford, the Rams traded an additional two future first-round draft picks.

While the LA Rams had traded first-round picks, what has become of the players chosen with those picks? Since we cannot correlate the player chosen with a player who the Rams would have selected, by rights the opportunity cost is to compare the value to two courses of action.

Of course, if you change one fact of history, you change it all.  So, to avoid chasing millions of variations down each of their respective rabbit holes, this will be the simplest form of comparison. The Rams had traded out of their first-round pick in each of their last five seasons.  This exercise will merely examine which player was ultimately selected at that spot.

The multiverse of draft scenario variants

Would the Rams have made the same choice?  Very unlikely. But as we’d stated before, as soon as this (or any for that matter) scenario changes the Rams trade into the Rams retaining their first-round pick, that changes the draft for all 32 NFL teams. If the Rams did not act in the manner of the 2016 NFL Draft and traded up to select quarterback Jared Goff, the Titans 2016 draft would have been altered. The Rams subsequently may have changed their 2017 draft position, and draft board accordingly.

The challenge is that much like the army of variants in the hot Disney mini television series LOKI, changing the history of the past historic drafts itself triggers so many cause-effect relationships that it becomes impossible to track any and all subsequent drafts as though the actual choice, for better or worse, was instead made by the LA Rams organization itself.

We choose to avoid the ping-pong possibilities. which forces the debate to rest solely upon the trade return versus the player chosen. Historically speaking, that limits this article to just the Jared Goff and Jalen Ramsey trades, because the future draft picks for Matthew Stafford have yet to be used.