Rams’ Les Snead ranked 15th among NFL’s best GMs in the draft
No general manager has a perfect record in the draft. Every personnel evaluator has their share of misses, Les Snead not excluded. But since becoming the Rams’ general manager in 2012, he’s had far more hits than whiffs in the draft.
He’s landed Pro Bowlers such as Aaron Donald, Jared Goff, Todd Gurley and Janoris Jenkins, while also uncovering guys like John Johnson, Sebastian Joseph-Day and Jordan Fuller outside the first round.
Given his lack of first-round picks the last four years, it’s hard to criticize the classes he and the Rams have come away with. But Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com doesn’t see Snead as one of the top 10 general managers when it comes to the NFL draft.
Rosenthal went back to 2015 and ranked each general manager who’s currently with a team and has gone through more than one draft. Snead came in at No. 15, lower than expected.
Best pick: Cooper Kupp | Round 3 (No. 69), 2017
Worst pick: N/A
The Rams don’t treat the draft like any other team. They are set to go seven straight years without using a first-round selection after taking Todd Gurley and Jared Goff in 2015 and ’16. While Goff and Gurley’s second contracts were huge mistakes, it’s hard to destroy this trade strategy. The Rams are among the top-five teams in wins since Sean McVay arrived, despite mid-level quarterback play. They have found contributors outside the first round (Cooper Kupp, John Johnson, Rob Havenstein, Cam Akers), but there’s no denying this approach has left them thinner and more reliant on trades and free agency than any other team in football. It’s a fascinating experiment that has mostly worked thus far, even if they receive an unspectacular ranking in this exercise. My cutoff of 2015 hurts Snead here because he drafted Aaron Donald the year before.
Rosenthal acknowledges that Snead was hurt by the 2015 cutoff, since Donald was drafted the year before. The six-year span also causes Michael Brockers, Janoris Jenkins, Greg Zuerlein and Lamarcus Joyner to be excluded.
Snead’s worst pick with the Rams was undoubtedly Greg Robinson at No. 2 overall in 2014, but he has a solid track record from top to bottom in the draft. You could make a strong case that he’s deserving of being ranked higher than the likes of Duke Tobin of the Bengals, Pete Carroll and John Schneider in Seattle and and even Rick Spielman of the Vikings.
Colts GM Chris Ballard deservingly took the top spot, followed by the Steelers’ Kevin Colbert and Jason Licht of the Bucs.
