Lions and Bucs accomplished something Rams failed to do in 2024

Blake Corum has to have a larger role in the offense in 2025

The Rams seem to have a pattern of disconnects from drafting offensive weapons on draft day to football field production. The pattern may have been there before 2020, but the 2020 NFL Draft is when I first started to notice the disparity.

Let's run down the offensive weapons who were drafted by the team with valuable picks, and their ultimate contribution to the team:

• 2020 - 52nd pick - RB Cam Akers - 1,443 yards | 10 TDs (5 years)
• 2020 - 57th pick - WR Van Jefferson - 1,449 yards | 10 TDs (4 years)
• 2021 - 57th pick - WR Tutu Atwell - 1,343 yards | 4 TDs (4 years)
• 2021 - 141st pick - TE/WR Jacob Harris - 6 yards | 0 TDs (3 years)
• 2024 - 83rd pick - RB Blake Corum - 207 rushing yards | 0 TDs

The Rams are projected to let WR Tutu Atwell explore signing with a new team due to an expired contract. That means that the team will have used three Round 2 picks and one Round 4 pick in recent NFL drafts with next to nothing to show for it. And the team's selection of RB Blake Corum is horrendously falling smack dab in the middle of the same pattern.

Can something be done? Let's hope so. As miraculously as the front office seems to be on Day 3 in finding vital offensive standouts like RB Kyren Williams (Round 5), WR Puka Nacua (Round 5) and the potential upside of WR Jordan Whittington (Round 6), there is just as must lack of return when the team has invested in offensive skill players earlier in the draft.

The Rams must generate valuable returns from investing in offensive skill players in the 2025 NFL Draft. The Rams' decision to trade away WR Cooper Kupp places the wide receiver room on life support. The team is now projected to lose:

• Cooper Kupp - 710 yards | 6 touchdowns
• Demarcus Robinson - 505 yards | 7 touchdowns
• Tutu Atwell - 562 yards | 0 touchdowns
• Tyler Johnson - 291 yards | 1 touchdown

That is a tremendous amount of offensive production to make up for in one season and takes an offense that struggled to score points and forces it into a far deeper deficit simply to reestablish par for last season.

While the Rams cannot expect any single player to make up the difference single-handedly, the team has to get past the hesitancy to give young offensive skill players a chance to prove themselves in this offense. I believe that both Blake Corum and WR Jordan Whittington can be significant contributors in this offense in 2025.

Now the team has to give them both the opportunity to prove that they can.

As always, thanks for reading.

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