You never know what teams are going to swoop in and shake up the NFL Draft. Every year, shocking picks and trades end up happening, and the 2024 NFL Draft will be no different. But maybe this year, we have a clue as to what team is looking to shake things up a bit.
The Los Angeles Rams are just a couple of years removed from winning a Super Bowl with Sean McVay, Matthew Stafford, and recently retired (future Hall of Famer) Aaron Donald leading the charge. The current version of the Los Angeles Rams is almost unrecognizable by comparison to that Super Bowl team, aside from some of those key pieces like McVay and Stafford, and we might be nearing the point at which the Rams push all their chips in the center on a new, young quarterback.
Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead have been flirting with the idea in recent years of getting another young QB in the building. At the end of the 2022 season they signed Baker Mayfield and had interest in bringing him back. In the 2023 NFL Draft, they went after Georgia's Stetson Bennett in the fourth round.
What could be on the way in the 2024 NFL Draft? Bleacher Report's Jordan Schultz said on The Pat McAfee Show that he believes the Rams are a potential sleeper team for Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr...
"I think a potential sleeper team for Michael Penix is the Rams..
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) March 26, 2024
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To be fair, it may not necessarily be in the first round that the Rams would be a sleeper team for Penix. Perhaps an ideal first couple of rounds for McVay and Snead would be taking a pair of Washington Huskies teammates in Troy Fautanu at tackle and Penix at the quarterback position. But the more buzz you hear about this QB class, the more it seems like teams targeting specific guys are going to need to go after them in the first round.
Penix was recently projected as the 13th overall pick in Daniel Jeremiah's mock draft. If there's one team that could view him as a possible first-round player, there might be two. If teams love Penix and believe he has viable future QB1 skills, it would make sense to take him in the first round.
The Los Angeles Rams are uniquely equipped to make this kind of a selection even with the presence of Matthew Stafford on the roster. Stafford appears to be on the back nine of his NFL career and has dealt with some injuries since joining the Rams.
This kind of pick would certainly shake up the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft. It would force teams around the league to push other quarterbacks up their board. Say you were planning on Penix being available in round two and your fallback option was Spencer Rattler in the third, now you're not exactly able to let Rattler wait until the third round.
As the supply flies off the board, the demand grows higher.
There will be a domino effect in the 2024 NFL Draft at the quarterback position one way or the other, but to see a team like the Rams jump into the mix would send other teams into a frenzy.