10 worst Rams draft picks of LA Rams GM Les Snead's era

X - DB Robert Rochell

With the 130th pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, the LA Rams select defensive back Robert Rochell from Central Arkansas. At the time, Rochell appeared to be a rather raw but capable defensive back who simply needed to learn how to compete at the NFL level. He had all of the athleticism, size, power and agility that any NFL team could have hoped for.

But in the past two years, those pieces never became a true NFL defensive back who could carve out a role in the Rams' secondary. For the life of me, I just don't know why. Was this the player? Or did coaching fail him? Or, was it simply a matter of the Rams targeting one set of skills in 2021, but abandoning those skills in a new defensive philosophy or new defensive back prototype, and Rochell simply is no longer ideally suited?

While there were obvious reasons for his remaining buried on the LA Rams depth chart in 2021, the team truly needed someone, anyone, to step up at some point in the 2022 NFL season. And yet, Robert Rochell was given 26 defensive snaps for the entire 2022 NFL season. That's just crazy. And while there is renewed hope that the LA Rams may find a suitable role for him in 2023, that hope faded when the team signed FA DB Akhello Witherspoon.

Robert Rochell is a 6-foot-2 195-pound defensive back who has competed for two seasons in the NFL, but who had taken a huge step backward last year. If anyone can get him back on track, it's returning defensive back coach Aubrey Pleasant. But the LA Rams clearly need Robert Rochell to deliver, and for two seasons, that has not happened.