Rams rookie Braden Fiske showing he was worthy of big price tag on draft night

Braden Fiske has shown that he was worth the price that the Rams paid to acquire him on draft night

The Los Angeles Rams have once again seemed to get it right with their rookie class. Following Aaron Donald’s retirement, one of the biggest goals for general manager Les Snead was to rebuild the defense and draft some building pieces for the unit moving forward.

With the 19th overall pick, the Rams had Jared Verse fall into their lap. Verse has been undoubtedly the most impressive defensive rookie through the first nine weeks of the season. However, the Rams weren’t slated to pick again until the 52nd overall pick. By that time, much of the high-end talent would be off of the board.

That’s why, the Rams moved back inside the top-40 to the 39th overall pick with the Carolina Panthers. To move up the 13 spots, the Rams gave up the 52nd overall pick, a 2025 second-round selection and a fifth-round pick in the 2024 draft. General manager Les Snead moved up to get his guy in Braden Fiske and made sure to do just that.

However, the move wasn’t seen as positively by the media. Per the draft pick value charts, the Rams severely overpaid.

In fact, according to ESPN’s Seth Walder, the Rams’ trade-up for Braden Fiske was the most expensive day two overpay of at least the last six drafts. The move came with a lot of risk. Fiske had an elite combine, testing among the best defensive linemen in the draft class which shot him up draft boards.

Snead has had a “F them picks” mindset in Los Angeles, but it’s one thing to give up a lot of assets for a proven player rather than an unknown. While the Rams may have really liked Fiske, that’s exactly what he was at the time — an unknown quantity.

The key theme doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the player. The main issue was how much the Rams gave up to get that player. There’s no doubt that the Rams did give up a lot to acquire Fiske. However, it was a move that the Rams needed to make.

Seth Walder of ESPN said of the trade at the time,

“The Rams paid an obscene price to move up from No. 52, sacrificing a fifth-round pick and future second-rounder in the process — the most expensive Day 2 overpay in at least the past six drafts and a larger investment than their first-round pick (Jared Verse at No. 19), according to our draft pick valuations. And all this for a player who was at the beginning of his selection range, according to the Draft Day Predictor (in other words, this was a borderline reach).”

Again, after Aaron Donald’s retirement, it put the Rams in a difficult spot and left a huge void on the defensive line. A rookie was never going to replace Donald, but they lacked athleticism and talent in that position group. Fiske gave them that and was the perfect player to pair with their first round pick Jared Verse.

Had the Rams not made that trade and just waited, they likely don’t get an impact player. Before the Rams drafted at 52, two other defensive linemen went off the board in Maason Smith and Kris Jenkins. The next defensive lineman to go after 52 was Michael Hall Jr. Smith has played in 136 snaps and had two pressures while showing some flashes against the run. Jenkins has three pressures as well and has been better against the run to this point. Hall has been the most productive out of the group with eight pressures.

Still, all of those players have simply been fine. To replace Donald, the Rams needed more than fine on the defensive line. They needed a player who could make an impact and that is Fiske.

ESPN’s Bill Barnwell said,

“The Rams paid nearly double the value of that No. 52 pick on the Stuart chart to land their defensive tackle. By Stuart’s model, they sent the equivalent of the No. 8 pick to land Fiske, which means he has to be far more valuable than the typical second-round pick to make this deal pan out…Even by the more conservative Johnson chart, the trade haul sent to acquire Fiske equates to something like the No. 21 pick in a typical draft. I’m sure Los Angeles had a first-round grade on Fiske, but the price the front office paid means it would be breaking even if he plays like a solid first-round pick and would come up short otherwise.”

Per Barnwell’s analysis, the Rams essentially sent the number eight overall pick to the Panthers in order to draft Fiske. The first defensive lineman in the draft wasn’t selected until pick 16, but Fiske has over double the number of pressures than Byron Murphy of the Seahawks. In fact, Fiske a total of 25 pressures per NextGen stats. To put that in perspective, Smith, Jenkins, Hall, and Murphy have combined for 21 pressures.

Last season, Jalen Carter was drafted with the ninth overall pick by the Philadelphia Eagles. Through his first eight games, Carter had 29 pressures which is only four more than Fiske up to this point. Barnwell’s model showed that the Rams gave up the eighth overall pick and Fiske has performing like a top-10 selection.

Even using a different model by Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap, Fiske is outperforming what the Rams gave up to get him.

The other side of this, obviously, is what the Panthers got in return. After moving back to 52, the Panthers traded up to 46 to take running back Jonthan Brooks. Brooks has yet to play a snap in the NFL. With the 52nd pick, the Indianapolis Colts took wide receiver Adonai Mitchell. Mitchell has 140 yards receiving through his first nine games.

To say the Rams have gotten the best rookie out of that group would be an understatement. Fiske ranks second in pressures this season behind only Jared Verse who plays on the edge. It is telling that Fiske has 26 pressures per Pro Football Focus. the next closest is Elijah Chapman of the New York Giants with 12. In other words, Fiske has nearly twice as many pressures as the next closest rookie defensive lineman.

When the Rams initially traded for Fiske, there was a lot of controversy with the pick and what Snead had given up to go get him. While that criticism may have been warranted in a sense at the time, it’s also why it’s hard to analyze the draft in real time.

Draft analysis is often done based on value. That value can either come via the pick value chart in a trade which was the case with the Rams. It can also come in the sense of “x” player was taken in the second round when media big boards had a fifth-round value on the player.

The fact of the matter is, the Rams may have had a first-round value on Fiske. Needing impact players on the defensive line with Donald, gone, it made sense to go get a potential impact player in that position group.

Fiske just had his best game against the Seattle Seahawks and showed that he can be a force to be reckoned with on the Rams defense. He has also showed that he was worth of the price tag that the Rams paid to acquire him on draft night.