With the 2022 NFL Draft around the corner, teams spent time evaluating the next crop of prospects at the annual NFL Combine.
For the Los Angeles Rams, they sent team personnel members to scout players but Les Snead and Sean McVay once again opted to stay back. This has been common practice for the two who prefer to do their draft prep at home.
While it might seem strange to seem, head coach Sean McVay explained that time efficiency is of the utmost importance for the organization, via Stu Jackson of TheRams.com:
“There’s a lot of different ways of being able to get the information that’s necessary to make sound decisions as it relates to the draft and free agency, and there’s a lot of trust that I have in Les and his group to do that,” McVay said during a video conference Wednesday. “And that’s what they’re working on throughout the midst of the season. This is a year’s worth of work, and that trust that our coaching staff has in them is been a really valuable part of why we feel like we can approach those things. I also think we always try to ask why, you know? Why are we doing the things that we’re doing? Is this in alignment with helping us be the best football team and efficiently using our time as relates to combine, these different things and, and that’s kind of a good thing.”
Snead added that the Rams utilize the combine, albeit differently than other teams:
“We’re very intentional about how we use the combine,” Snead said. “We definitely use it – our area scouts are doing something specifically different than maybe some of our personnel executives and advisors. Our analysts and analytics department will be crunching and synthesizing the numbers, right that come in as the players get measured and tested in different different drills. Maybe we’re not there to see subset player, jump or do his broad jump. But we certainly utilize the numbers as they come in. So that’s, that’s what we’re doing.”
Los Angeles has certainly bucked normal convention when it comes to team building but after winning a Super Bowl, it is hard to question their methods.
Even though the Rams don’t have a pick in the first two rounds this year, they still have eight overall in the later rounds, which is important for supplementing their roster.
