The 2023 NFL draft for the Rams

[ANGELAKERAMS]

The word now being communicated is Evans may supplant Kyren Williams in minutes and relegate Williams to third string.

Well, that report was waaaay off.

 

[Retroram52]

Yes it was!

 

[shopson67]

Davis Allen had a bit of a coming out party this weekend too, with Higbee out and Long injured early. Liked the comment during the broadcast: "If the Rams are asking for a 5th rounder, don't give it to them" lol. Kyren, Puka and Allen all 5th rounders.

 

[Battlelyon]

 

[Battlelyon]

 

[Battlelyon]

 

[Battlelyon]

Who is Kobie Turner?​

Eight days ago, after the Rams hung on for a playoff-clinching 26-25 win over the Giants, coach Sean McVay gave a gameball to the Rams’ best player, defensive tackle Aaron Donald, for his two-sack performance. Donald took the ball, waved, was grateful … then walked to rookie defensive tackle Kobie Turner’s locker. “This is yours,” the three-time Defensive Player of the Year said to Turner, tossing him the ball. “Your gameball.” Understandable. It was a career day for Turner—2.5 sacks, two tackles for loss, three quarterback hits—in the midst of a great six-game run since Thanksgiving: seven sacks, six tackles for loss. Turner’s become an irreplaceable piece of the Rams’ defensive front.

Why? This emoji has much to do with it:

More about that emoji in a moment. The Rams are hoping for the daily double this year. Two rookies, wide receiver Puka Nacua and Turner, are in contention to win the Offensive and Defensive rookie of the year awards. The awards have been won by teammates only three times previously in the 57 years that the league has awarded separate awards for rookies: 1967 (Detroit running back Mel Farr and cornerback Lem Barney), 2017 (New Orleans cornerback Marshon Lattimore and running back Alvin Kamara), and 2022 (Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner and receiver Garrett Williams).

But Nacua and Turner are stunning exceptions to the rule. Four of those six twin rookie winners were first-round picks, with Kamara, at 67, being the lowest overall pick. It’s a different story with the Rams. Turner, from Wake Forest, was a third-round pick, 89th overall; Nacua was a fifth-rounder out of BYU, 177th overall. It’s amazing that the two rookie winners could come from such modest draft positions.

Nacua’s story is well-known now. Book worm who studied hard and learned the offense early. Took advantage of Cooper Kupp’s absence to make himself irreplaceable to Matthew Stafford. Trustworthy enough to put up the best numbers ever by a rookie receiver—105 catches, 1,486 yards.

But Turner—he’s a mystery. He lasted till the 89th pick because he was smallish (6-2, 288) for a nose tackle, with the dreaded “short arms” many teams shy away from in the draft. Rams GM Les Snead, though, has pounded into his staff that because they haven’t had a lot of high picks (no first rounders since 2016, only three of 14 picks in 2023 in the top 120), they’ve got to hit on some middle and lower picks every year, emphasizing outstanding traits. Turner, who walked on at Richmond before transferring to Wake Forest for the 2022 season, had a meh college career, but the Rams loved how he played every play like it was his last. Snead said some of the Ram evaluators he trusts most—Ray Farmer, Ted Monago, Marty Barrett—loved Turner’s potential for disruption.

Snead is big on the collaborative process in scouting college players, and that extends to the front office. In the 2015 draft, Snead was a young GM and had a defensive tackle, Grady Jarrett, graded higher than the league consensus. Snead waited and waited—and lost Jarrett to the Falcons in the fifth round. Turner reminded Snead of Jarrett. And before this draft, Snead told club president Kevin Demoff: “Make sure you remind me not to pass on Grady Jarrett again.”

So as the third round was winding down, Snead was thinking of trading pick 89 down into the fourth round to acquire more picks. “I’ve got one job,” Demoff said. “Remember not to pass on Kobie Turner.” Snead bypassed the trade and picked Turner at 89.

One more thing. Snead’s a 21st-Century GM. He likes the Gen Z bells and whistles. He gives his scouts, when they write reports, the option of adding emojis to their reports about their love or hate of players—so that if they’re not in the room when the report is read, their attitude will be felt. Well, 13 of 14 Rams scouts who wrote reports on Turner included the fire emoji, which, literally, in Rams’ scouting parlance means Pound the table to make this player a Ram. Thirteen of 14 scouts pounding the table—swayed Snead too.

I told the fire-emoji story to Turner the other day. “That makes complete sense,” he said. “Because when I got here, I get the feeling that I was really wanted. Really, this was the perfect place for me. I’ve studied Aaron since I was in high school. It was an absolute dream of mine to play alongside him.”

Turner’s first eight games—one sack, two pressures—were mediocre. The second half of his season has been superb. “Early on, I felt like a rookie and played like a rookie,” he told me. “Now working with AD all day every day, working with the coaches, my confidence has grown. I feel like I belong.”

The defensive rookie award probably comes down to Turner and fellow DT Jalen Carter of the Eagles. While Turner has raised his game in recent weeks, Carter has cooled, with just two sacks and 11 tackles in the last seven games. It looks like the 50 national media voters for the post-season awards might be down to Nacua versus C.J. Stroud on offense (Stroud finished with a flourish Saturday night, with a playoff-enabling win over Indy) and Carter versus Turner on defense.

Per Next Gen Stats, Turner leads all rookie defensive tackles with 626 snaps and 34 run stops. He is fourth in pressures by rookies, with 43, one behind Carter, who has had little impact against the run. So it’s a horserace. And Houston’s Will Anderson, the leader among all rookie edge players with 57 pressures, is a factor in the defensive rookie race as well. Anderson and Carter were top 10 picks, while Turner had to make up a lot of ground to be in the chase with them.

“In a way,” Snead said, “it’d be good for the NFL if Kobie and Puka won. It’d make the point that, wow, you can be in the third or fifth round and win rookie of the year.”