Even though the Los Angeles Rams have traded away numerous picks to acquire stars, they have done well to find talent on Days 2 and 3 of the NFL Draft with the compensatory picks they accumulate.
It is a delicate balance of strategically letting players in order to receive picks and nailing those selections in the later rounds of the draft. So far, general manager Les Snead and the scouting department have done well to find players to complement their cornerstone talent though it sometimes costs them chances at players in free agency.
While recouping draft picks is important, Snead confirmed that the team will still look to add talent via free agency if the right opportunity comes along, via Stu Jackson of TheRams.com:
“We’re always cognizant of that,” Snead said. “But you also don’t want to just be ‘OK, our whole objective in life is to acquire as many comp picks as possible,’ right. So, in the calculus equation, we might need to give up a comp pick to acquire someone to help. We kind of look at as stay agile, always know the landscape, and if an opportunity presents itself, analyze it and determine if that opportunity is worth going for.”
Teams are awarded compensatory picks based on the NFL’s formula, but the important piece is that they lose more free agents than gain. In the Rams’ case, they have already seen Von Miller, Darious Williams, and Austin Corbett leave though they did manage to sign Allen Robinson.
Also, there seems to be serious interest in bringing in Bobby Wagner, who recently visited Los Angeles, though nothing seems imminent as of yet.
