I want to preface this post with a couple of things.  I'm not an expert, I won't pretend to be an expert.  I love football, and I love the Rams.  I have my whole life.  I'm 29, I fell in love with Eric Dickerson, watched some of those great late 80's teams, stood by them strong through the 90's and am still as strong of a fan  now as ever.  The following are some thoughts, opinions, and observations from the draft. 

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I hope no one minds me doing this, I'm not a bot or a spammer.  I've created fan posts before and make comments on other posts fairly often.  If this breaks the rules or is "frowned upon" please let me know. 

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Among the Ram faithful following there is naturally much discussion regarding our 2010 first pick.  It's not surprising, the draft is always an exciting time for fans, but when the team you have rooted for our entire lives has the 1st overall pick, it becomes an obsession.  It seems like the question posed here had a clear cut answer a few months back, but as the draft draws nearer the answer seems to be clear as mud.  A few months a go, almost everyone would agree that Suh would be the first pick, almost regardless of who was drafting first.  The consensus was that he was that he had that rare talent that would make him the first selection no matter what.  So what happend to that??  It could be the media trying to create story lines prior to the draft, we don't really know for sure.

It's of my humble opinion, that a team (any team, not just my beloved Rams) that finishes the previous season 1-15 and lands the first overall pick, should 99 times out of 100 be drafting the best player available.  I don't care what people say about QB's and that a team should be making a QB the first overall pick because there worth the money a 1st pick commands.  If your team is that bad, than the economics of the pick should not come into consideration.  We should be picking Suh, and I don't think it's even debatable.  Suh is the clear cut best player available, and that makes this an obvious choice.  I would say the only exception for the Rams in this draft would be if the best player available was a RB or MLB, than we could look at other positions to draft. 

If the Rams were to draft a QB 1st, it would remind so much of the draft when the 49ers took Alex Smith.  Smith was clearly not the best player avaialble that year, but because of the pressure to draft a QB 1st, they took Smith.  How did that work out for them??  If you are a Rams fan, than you love the Alex Smith pick.  To the San Fran faithful it had to be incredibly frustrating, to have a 1st overall pick and blow it because of the misconception that a struggling franchise needs to draft a QB 1st.  I know what some people will say, for every Alex Smith there is a Peyton Manning, to me that's a risk not worth taking.  I would much rather take Suh.  I know there is no guarantee that Suh will become a dominating force, but at least I will know we took the consensus best player available and not a QB that we were pressured into drafting. 

My only exception to not drafting Suh would be to trade to acquire additional picks.  A struggling franchise can't ever have too many draft picks. 

So tell me TST faithful, do you agree or disagree with my logic?

Remember after the 2009 draft when a lot of people were hoping the Rams would have drafted a WR in the 2nd Round.  There was some debate about who the Rams should have drafted in the first, but I don't think there has been any big complaint with Jason Smith.  There were some that were really pulling for Aaron Curry.

The biggest debate without a question was who the Rams should draft in the 2nd round, and not just who, but what position should they draft with there 2009 2nd rounder.  Most people who were clamoring for a WR kept putting Brian Robiskie's name out there as the WR to draft at that spot.  At that time, I was opposed to Robiskie and hindsight has proved we made the right choice.  Can you imagine if we didn't have JL and had Robiskie on our roster in his place.  Last season Robiskie made 7 grabs in 11 games....JL's stats look a bit better than that. 

The argument can be made that the majority of WR's struggle in there rookie year, but the argument made by so many people for Robiskie that he was pro ready, a very polished College receiver that should make the transition easier than most.   If were to draft a WR last year, I was really hoping Nicks would have fell to us, but he didn't. 

All I'm saying is I'm glad that Rams Management drafted JL, and that we should feel pretty confident about the decisions they make going into the 2010 draft.

Like so many of you here, I'm a life long, die hard Ram's fan, so that makes this story that much better.  It's a great story even if you are not a Rams fan.

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Does anyone else think that the Rams Brass should at least entertain the thought of making a play to acquire Mr. Edwards??  Maybe the asking price is too high, but I don't really know.  I would really hope that we at least made a phone call to Cleveland to ask. 

Everything I hear is that the Browns would still like to move him, and I think if the Rams would acquire Braylon Edwards that would immediately make us playoff contenders.  Any thoughts?

I'd like to preface this post by saying that I'm not a great writer, I have a lot of thoughts that sound great in my head, and when I go to put my thoughts in print it comes out sounding stupid.  I don't follow what other teams do, or have in there minor league system, so this trade may not even come close to working....it's a speculation thread.

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Well I think I know.  It's a thought completely out of left field (pun intended).  From the time the trade was made official I felt that 5 years down the road BB would be greatly criticized for this trade.  Not from me, maybe not from a lot of you, but by most media types.  Why??  Because I feel CarGon will flurish playing in the hitting friendly confines of Coors Field.  Meanwhile Matt will struggle playing in the bay and the very pitching friendly confines in Oakland. 

So, why do I think this was another brillant move by BB?  We all know that Boras won't allow his playes to sign contracts until there current contract has expired right??  Well if Mr. Matt's production greatly decreases in the upcoming season like I think it might.  Matt's value on the open market will also decrease thus making him affordable to the A's.  I don't honestly don't believe BB traded 3 young players for 1 year use from Matt.  BB is loading for a run, and 1 year from Matt does not fit in those plans. 

BB will sign Furcal to a 4 year deal and then re sign Matt at the end of the 2009 season to a long term deal.  While our young players continue to develop, especially being able to learn from a couple vets like Matt and Rafeal, the A's will be contenders every year for several years at least.