LA Rams traded draft picks? There’s more where that came from

When the LA Rams traded their second-round and third-round picks to the Denver Broncos for All-Pro veteran outside linebacker Von Miller, many NFL reporters focused on the Rams team and the fit of Miller in the defense. But there will always be someone who takes a different angle, one of disdain, angst, or utter contempt because the LA Rams use draft picks so unlike other NFL teams.

Even as we take the time to explain the differing Rams perspective, where the Rams view draft picks as a currency of completely speculative value like bitcoins, it doesn’t silence the detractors.

For example, this week The Guardian’s Oliver Connelly, a writer who seldom appears in any NFL bylines, proclaimed in their feature NFL story this weeK” “Week by week the LA Rams are trading away their future. And they don’t care.”

The problem with the article is that it is more shock headlines than substance.  Here is an extract from the article that doesn’t withstand being held up to the light:

"“There is a sense of humility to the Rams not chasing prolonged success, in admitting they cannot out-draft the entire league on a yearly basis. Instead, the Rams are allowing the rest of the league to reveal the difference-making players before they go and chase them on the trade market.” – per the Guardian’s Oliver Connelly"

The problem? He has not one shred of evidence to support the premise that the Rams are not chasing prolonged success.

But that’s the way now, isn’t it? Write something and immediately folks believe it. Sometimes it seems as though Critical thinking is a dying skill set. While I’m not faulting the claim that the Rams have abandoned tomorrow for today, I start out as skeptical. Of course, that benefit of the doubt only exists if the article had any evidentiary basis. Finding no trace of any supporting facts,  I am a bit alarmed when a bold-faced error is treated as fact ‘just because,’ someone says so.