Los Angeles Rams Mock Draft: New QB for Todd Gurley?
The St. Louis Rams are officially relocating and becoming the Los Angeles Rams again — will they pair star RB Todd Gurley with a new QB in the 2016 NFL Draft?
It’s an odd thing to start saying, but the St. Louis Rams are officially going to relocate and become the Los Angeles Rams. Not that many of us didn’t see it coming, but it’s just crazy to say it as a reality rather than just something to speculate on.
Come time for the 2016 NFL Draft, the Los Angeles Rams are going to have a big decision to make about the future of the franchise now that they know where they will be located — who is going to be the team’s quarterback of the future?
Looking at some mock drafts across the web, it’s clear to see that the opinions on what the Rams will do with their top pick in the draft (15th overall) but we know Nick Foles isn’t inspiring a whole lot of confidence as a franchise player at this point in time. One mock draft from CBS Sports had the Rams selecting a quarterback in the first round, and I want to take a look at that as an option.
Rams Mock Pick: Carson Wentz, QB, North Dakota State
Carson Wentz is a player I’ve had my eye on for a long while now. Living in the Dakotas myself, it’s fun to see the type of attention he’s getting nationally.
It wouldn’t be out of the question to see an FCS player like Wentz get picked in the first round, but to a team that has just relocated to Los Angeles, to pick a player that didn’t even play division 1 football would be risky to say the very least.
That’s not to say Wentz wouldn’t be up to the task. He’s got a fantastic arm and great size for the QB position, and I’ve seen him make some throws that have your jaw nearly reaching the floor. He can drop the ball in a basket 40 or 50 yards downfield and put it right on his receivers in any way an NFL team would ask him to.
The upside with Wentz is incredibly high, but unfortunately, there’s no way to know how he’d respond to the rigors of the NFL and the speed adjustment having come from the competition NDSU plays on a regular basis. Again, that’s not to diminish his accomplishments. As a general whole, the Bison beat everyone they played, and Wentz has multiple national championship notches on his belt. This team won, even when they played upper level competition, and proved that they were truly a college football powerhouse, not just an FCS power.
The idea of pairing Todd Gurley and the rest of the Rams’ offensive firepower with a player like Wentz is, at the very least, intriguing.
You might be wondering why a player like Wentz, who has done so well as a college quarterback at NDSU, was not recruited by big time FBS schools if he’s really all that good. Well, being a 5-8 high school freshman and not starting until your senior season is a pretty valid reason for a light recruitment, but I doubt Wentz would want to really change anything.
He’s a 6-5, 230 pound athletic specimen now who can not only sling the ball all around the field, he can run it a little bit too. His career rushing total was just shy of 1,000 yards, when in reality we know it was more than that because sack yardage is figured against individual rushing yards for some horrible reason.
This is a guy who could conceivably come in and make the LA Rams a very interesting presence in the NFC, but ideally you would like to see him get that year to learn in the NFL coming from an FCS program.
We’ve seen the Baltimore Ravens bring in a talent like Joe Flacco and he’s been a guy who started games in the playoffs from basically day one, and Wentz has the ability to do that as well.
This is a very talented roster of players in Los Angeles. The only thing that seems to consistently be missing is a quarterback, and it’s time they used their draft assets to find one. Carson Wentz would be a very nice pick for a team like the Rams, but will they be up for taking that kind of risk with their move to Los Angeles?
It’s all going to be fascinating to watch.