Jared Verse was a safe consolation prize, but right pick for the Rams in first-round

Coming into the draft, there was some speculation that the Los Angeles Rams would trade up in the first-round of the NFL Draft. The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reported that the Rams were looking to trade into the top-10. Per Russini, there was a player that Sean McVay was in love with and other teams around the league assumed that player was tight end Brock Bowers.

The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue seemed to confirm this by saying,

“On Thursday, the Rams called multiple teams to gather intel on what the prices would be to trade up or down, including a conversation with a team in the top 10 that could have led to selecting an offensive player. Team and league sources believed those costs to be too high, especially with multiple other teams trying to trade into that group and therefore driving up the cost.”

Thinking about Bowers in a Sean McVay offense as he continued to slide down the draft board was exciting. The things Bowers does on the field as an offensive weapon would have made him a perfect long-term Cooper Kupp replacement. Per NFL Media’s Peter Schrager,

“The player that they had their eyes on if he had slipped a little bit was Brock Bowers. The Rams really fell in love with Brock Bowers. There were phone calls made and there was some excitement in that L.A. building.”

Instead, the Atlanta Falcons shocked the football world when they selected Washington quarterback Michael Penix with the eighth overall pick instead of trading down or taking a defensive player. With just a third and fourth round pick, some thought the Chicago Bears may trade down from nine. General manager Ryan Pace opted to add an elite pass-catcher in wide receiver Rome Odunze. The Jets passed on Bowers for a tackle in Olu Fashanu and with just one viable quarterback left on the board, the Denver Broncos took no chances and grabbed their guy in Bo Nix.

The only thing more surprising than the Falcons taking Michael Penix was the Las Vegas Raiders crushing McVay’s heart and taking Bowers. Bowers was likely the best player on the board, but the Raiders just took Michael Mayer in the second round last year and have big questions at the quarterback position.

At that point, the Rams almost certainly would have changed their focus to Byron Murphy. Instead of drafting Murphy, they will instead be facing him twice a year as he was selected by the Seattle Seahawks. New head coach Mike Macdonald could be looking to turn him into the next Justin Madueke.

Despite some of the potential early frustration, the board could not have fallen any better. With most of the needs on the defensive side of the ball, the first defensive player wasn’t drafted until the 15th pick when the Indianapolis Colts selected Laiatu Latu. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler reported on Thursday night that the Rams were a team that passed Latu’s medicals. He could have been in consideration at 19. As offensive players came off the board, talented defensive players remained on it.

The Rams got unlucky in a sense when they missed out on a top edge rusher in free agency. Danielle Hunter opted to go home and play in Houston. Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel joined the Minnesota Vikings. Josh Uche took less money to remain with the New England Patriots. That luck shifted in favor of the Rams on Thursday night as arguably the best edge rusher in the draft fell right into their laps.

For the first time in the history of the NFL Draft, five of the first 10 picks were quarterbacks. Latu going at 15 was the latest a defensive player had ever been selected. It was quite literally almost a best case scenario for the Rams. As Snead said on Thursday night, “Offense definitely pushed defense our way.”

Verse came onto the scene last year at Florida State as a transfer from UAlbany. In his first season in the ACC, Verse had 17.5 tackles for loss which included nine sacks. Coming into the year, some were expecting him to potentially be a top-10 pick. While the Seminole pass rusher didn’t have the 2023 that some expected, he still finished with nine sacks and his 62 pressures ranked fifth in college football.

The stats may not have been elite like some expected, but Verse led a Florida State defense that finished top-20 in the country and was a big reason for the team going undefeated.

It can be argued that a player like Chop Robinson, who the Rams met a week before the draft, has the higher ceiling. However, Verse is a player that can help now, has a much higher floor, and is better against the run. He’s exactly what the Rams need on defense right now. Said McVay, “He’s got a lot of versatility. You watch the way that he plays, he’s got great hands, he’s violent, he’s got a versatile arsenal of moves that he can activate, but he plays the game the way that we want it to be played.” In ‘The Beast’, Brugler called Verse, “reminiscent of ei ght-year NFL veteran Dante Fowler.” Fowler is a player that the Rams traded for back in 2018.

Despite the initial disappointment of not being able to draft Brock Bowers, that isn’t to say that the Rams don’t like Jared Verse. Settling on Jared Verse is like still getting a chocolate chip cookie when the double chocolate chip cookies are all gone. At the end of the day, the double chocolate chip cookies may have been too sweet anyway.

While the Rams needed an edge rusher, with Verse falling to them at 19, it didn’t feel like a forced pick at all. It was a truly a case where best player available and need met each other at the same point. Taking an edge now relieves some pressure and opens up how the Rams can attack their other 10 picks. If they want to go offense at 52, they don’t have to feel like they are making sacrifices on the defensive side of the ball. They can also begin to use Verse as a building block and try to put some interior players around him that can make an impact or feel comfortable taking a defensive back who will be benefitted by having a player who can get to the quarterback.

In late-February around the time of the NFL Combine, Snead was quoted saying, “Sean and I, at the core, we like to attack — we believe in being aggressive. Sean and I do have in our DNA an element of, ‘We’re not going to be scared to try to go win a gold medal.”

That mindset was certainly on display on Thursday as the Rams worked the phones to try and make a big move into the top-10. While that move never came to fruition and a trade didn’t happen, things always find a way of working out in the end. The Rams ended up with Jared Verse and a building block on defense. Verse may have been the safe pick much like Steve Avila was a season ago. Even last year, the Rams tried to trade up into the first-round for an offensive weapon in Dalton Kincaid. However, as was the case with Avila, the pick for Verse may have been the right one.