The 2023 NFL Draft is finally here as the first round kicked off on Thursday. Although they’re armed with 11 picks, the Los Angeles Rams sat out round one as their first pick doesn’t come until No. 36 overall. With the roster barren of talent, Los Angeles needs to be smart with how they use their selections as this sets up the organization’s foundation.
One under-discussed area of need is backup quarterback and Les Snead admitted that the team has been open to the idea of grabbing someone to develop behind Matthew Stafford, via Cameron DaSilva of USA Today:
“Because of the situation of the void, we’ve definitely been intentional about, if you want to call it the second tier and those players that would probably be beyond the four, even a fifth one now in Tennessee (QB Hendon Hooker) is talked about a lot going early, going before us,” Snead said.
Sean McVay would have plenty of say in any talks of drafting a signal caller and he laid out in detail what he personally looks for in the position:
“You’re always talking about decision making, the ability to be able to play on time with accuracy,” McVay said. “What does it look like in crunch time? What are those innate traits that you have in terms of how your personality can authentically come across? But you naturally bring people with you because you’re thrust into an innate leadership role as a quarterback just based on the nature of the position. So those things are important, but there’s so many different parts of that evaluation.
“You’re looking for a lot of those types of things, and I think that can be illustrated and expressed in a variety of ways based on what those guys elite traits are do we have a vision for him. The quarterback is where everything always starts, and there’s certain guys that are easier evals just because they might be doing certain things that you would ask, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll end up being a better player. So I think you have to be able to look at the total group and their total body of work, and then figure out how do they elevate others around them and what are those elite traits and do we feel like it translates to our level and what we would ask, and then ultimately we would adjust to them as well.”
While Stafford is the clear answer at quarterback for the Rams in the short term, it’s never a bad idea to think ahead in the event that disaster strikes. There are a few Day 2 and 3 quarterbacks that are worth a gamble, so it’ll be interesting to see if Los Angeles does indeed go in that direction.
The Rams’ first pick in the second round is at No. 36 overall. Both Will Levis and Hendon Hooker fell out of the first round, so it will be interesting to see if the Rams go with one of them or deem it is too early to take a quarterback.
