The Rams don’t need to take a quarterback in the first round for the sake of it.
One of the bigger questions that the Los Angeles Rams could potentially answer during the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft is who is going to be the heir to Matthew Stafford and the quarterback of the future. Recently, the Rams have become a trendy team to take a quarterback in mock drafts with that player primarily being Jaxson Dart out of Ole Miss.
As with most things, this is a case where multiple things can be true at the same time. It is true that the Rams need to have a plan post-Matthew Stafford. The Rams don’t want to be in a place in three years where they back themselves into a corner at the quarterback position. A recent example of this is the Pittsburgh Steelers and how they’ve approached the quarterback position post-Ben Roethlisberger.
At the same time, the Rams are also not in a place where they have to take a quarterback. They have time on their side and a case can be made that a quarterback is not the best option for the current version of this roster.
Since the early fall, it has been made well known that this is considered a weaker quarterback class. Quarterbacks such as Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward likely wouldn’t have cracked the top-six in last year’s class. They certainly wouldn’t have gone before Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels or Michael Penix. A case can start to be made at JJ McCarthy and Bo Nix.
Meanwhile, next year’s class is projected to be much better with at least three potential first round players in Drew Allar, Garrett Nussmeier, and Arch Manning. That doesn’t mention Dylan Raiola or Cade Klubnik either. As MMQB’s Albert Breer said,
“I had a couple guys tell me that LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier could’ve been the first quarterback to go this year, and I had a couple others agree. A couple teams, I heard, actually encouraged Penn State’s Drew Allar to declare, expecting that he’d rise through the process and go in the top 10. Clemson’s Cade Klubnik is another one who, had he declared, probably would’ve gone relatively high this year. Then, there’s South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, who has an intriguing physical skill set, Georgia transfer Carson Beck at Miami, and of course the possibility that someone shoots up through the season such as Jayden Daniels did in 2023 or Cam Ward did in ’24…If you’re a coach or general manager with some job security, you might be tempted to sign a vet and wait a year to draft a quarterback.”
There’s no reason for the Rams to force the issue here, especially with someone like Jaxson Dart. This isn’t necessarily a knock on Dart as a player, but it’s also fair to say that Dart isn’t a first round quarterback. As noted by Nate Tice of Yahoo Sports,
“Dart has tools to work with. He has athleticism and flashes the high-level throws a starting quarterback in the NFL needs to make. Ideally he can sit behind a veteran to continue to iron out some of the kinks, and continue to sharpen his anticipation and understanding of an expanded playbook. There’s some fun stuff to work with here, but I would have reservations selecting Dart in the first round because of a steep learning curve for executing more layered concepts, and the lack of consistency he currently displays.”
Again, the worst thing that the Rams can do is force themselves into a quarterback because they feel that they have to take one. If Sanders falls to 26, that’s one thing. However, there’s also no reason for the Rams to “force” quarterback and Stafford’s heir in the first round. At the end of the day, this is a team on the cusp of potentially winning a second Super Bowl with Matthew Stafford. The best thing to do would be to surround Stafford with talent and build around him while he still has the ability.
Looking back at the 2020 draft and the Green Bay Packers and it’s fair to question the decision made to draft Jordan Love rather than support Aaron Rodgers. Did the Packers make right call drafting Jordan Love? It’s a lot more complicated than a simple yes or no answer. They found a quarterback that they liked and Love has become their franchise guy. However, it probably wasn’t the best decision for that team that was on the cusp of winning. Would the Packers have been better off drafting someone that could contribute immediately such as Tee Higgins?
With this current version of the Rams roster, it makes more sense to get someone that can contribute now rather than a player who will be the third quarterback on the depth chart in 2025. The Rams could still draft that player in the third or fourth round. While it’s true that the fifth-year option is important at the quarterback position. Still, how valuable is the fifth year option if that player’s ceiling is Andy Dalton, Gardner Minshew, or Malik Willis? That’s not a player that is going to elevate a roster which is the exact reason why the Rams traded for Stafford in the first place. If the Rams go quarterback, they need to ensure that player is the right guy. As general manager Les Snead said at the NFL Owners Meetings,
“If the right guy fell to No. 26, and maybe he’s the right guy for another team, they might want to move into the first round and draft that guy. So maybe that is better for the Rams than picking that ‘right’ guy. That’s how to honestly answer that question. And then to be honest about the dishonesty, if we were really looking at a QB at No. 26, we would probably say an answer like that.”
There’s no reason for the Rams to take a player like Dart simply because he’s a quarterback. It’s important to not just draft a quarterback, but one that fits the system and can develop into a math-changing starter. It’s easy to draw comparisons to the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. However, Mahomes was always a high ceiling prospect. A player like Dart or even Milroe have the physical tools, but it’s hard to say that they are “high ceiling” prospects. A lot of the draft is based on projection and if there were other quarterbacks outside of Sanders and Ward who were considered “high ceiling” players, they would likely be getting actual first round buzz rather than an agent-pushed agenda.
As mentioned previously, the Rams still have time on their side. They may not have five years, but they have the ability to wait until 2026 as Stafford will still be under contract at that point. Worst case scenario, they can also wait until 2027 or look into trading for a player. This has typically been how Snead has approached the quarterback position. In 2015, the team swapped Sam Bradford for Nick Foles. The next year, they traded up to first overall to take Jared Goff. Finally, in 2021, Snead swapped Goff for Stafford.
If McVay has his guy of the future in mind, the Rams and Snead won’t be afraid to go get that player. The question is whether or not that player is in this draft. If that player is Dart, then the Rams absolutely should make that move. If it’s not though, there’s also no reason to force the position for the sake of it.