Rams dream mock draft: The perfect haul for LA in 2022

With the 104th selection of the 2022 NFL Draft

In the third round, the LA Rams select

Will that solve the team’s depth at the outside linebacker position? Well, it will certainly help a great deal. While some prospects selected by the Rams in the 2022 NFL Draft will be almost sure-fire redshirted players, I can see Nik Bonitto making it very hard on the LA Rams coaching staff to keep him off the field.

Standing 6-foot-3 and weighing 248-pounds, Bonitto is already turning heads over his ability to get after the quarterback. Bonitto is turning up in a lot of casual mock drafts in the 40-60 pick range, but that’s not what happened in this mock (and I used an online simulator to allow a higher projected pick to randomly fall to the Rams at 104.

In this dream mock scenario, most NFL teams are scrambling to grab the thin depth positions early, allowing the deeper positions for later. Fortunately for the LA Rams, that means some of the better-talented players fall to them, and Nik Bonitto is one such player.

In four seasons with Oklahoma, he recorded 118 tackles, 19.5 quarterback sacks, 33 tackles for a loss, seven pass deflections, two forced fumbles, and one fumble recovery. While he may need a bit more muscle mass to play every down at the NFL level, he has all the makings of a solid and productive rotational player out of the gates.

Bonitto offers the LA Rams a healthy outside linebacker that, as several positions hit hard by injuries in 2021, could make a huge difference simply by showing up ready to go every day.  But Bonitto could be far more. He’ll need to learn how to set the edge and turn action back to the middle, but once he masters that, he could be a solid contributor, even as early as the 2022 NFL season.