LOS ANGELES — After two days of letting the NFL draft come to them – moving down from No. 26 when an offer too good to refused came along, then standing pat on Day 2 – the Rams did not sit around on Day 3, instead taking an aggressive approach to rounding out their draft class.
The Rams entered Saturday with one fourth-round pick, four in the sixth and one in the seventh, but wound up not picking in the sixth round at all as they made three trades to go get their targets.
One of those sixths was packaged with the fourth to move up 10 spots for Auburn running back Jarquez Hunter. Another sixth was combined with the Rams’ 2026 fourth-rounder to move up into the fifth round for Ohio State defensive tackle Ty Hamilton. Then the Rams traded both remaining sixths to get back into the fifth for Ole Miss inside linebacker Chris Paul Jr.
“It was starting to get thin so we said, you know what, instead of wait and, I call it, let the draft happen to you, let’s go attack the draft,” general manager Les Snead said. “And when you do that, you have to give up some picks. But we thought that was the more appropriate thing to do as this thing evolved.”
The Rams started the weekend with eight draft picks, but by the end of Saturday had come away with a six-man draft class, their smallest since 2016. But, given how the last couple of Aprils have played out, that’s the something the Rams could afford to do.
Across the last two drafts and undrafted free-agent cycles, the Rams have identified 10 players who are now starting for the team, plus depth pieces and a kicker and punter to round out the roster. That infusion of talent helped the Rams return to the playoffs each of the past two seasons, and win a playoff game this last year.
So entering this weekend, the Rams could operate from a position of strength. They could be patient Thursday night and trade back 20 spots and add a future first-round pick for the trouble. And they could be aggressive Saturday and move up for players they coveted.
“I do think it’s a credit to what’s taken place over the last couple years,” head coach Sean McVay said. “I think it’s a positive thing for us to be able to feel like we can go up and get some players that there was a consistent buy-in, appreciation for. We call them ‘hots’, and all these guys, they had hot grades for the people we had look at them.”
Hunter provides a different look for the Rams’ running back room. With a 4.44-second 40-yard dash time, he brings some home-run ability. And with 4.1 yards after contact per carry in 2024, he can break some tackles and turn those into big gains, too, a nice contrast from the reliable-if-not-explosive Kyren Williams.
“He’s got the ability to go through you or to be able to run away from you,” McVay said. “He can hit home runs for you, too. You give him a vertical seam, he’s got the ability to run away from you. Some of the metrics that we have on him are really impressive.”
Hamilton is a menace in run defense, and strong as anyone in this draft; he benched 35 reps for 225 pounds at Ohio State’s pro day, two more than any prospect at this year’s combine. And Paul is a reliable run defender, too, plus a threat in blitz packages.
And the Rams’ efforts to come up and draft these players was not lost on them.
“It really shows how much this organization trusts me,” Paul said. “It just goes to show that each and every day I gotta give 110%, each and every day. They were going to get that regardless, man, but that meant a lot to me.”
The Rams – who rounded out their draft class with Pitt receiver Konata Mumpfield in the seventh round – have entered each of the last two seasons with questions about where they would get contributions at certain spots on the field. But the roster has been built meticulously the past three offseasons, and the front office was able to lean on that position of strength this weekend.
“I’m jacked about this team, jacked to get started, but we’re just getting started,” Snead said. “So we’re going to, as Sean always talks about, now build the foundation for what we’re going to attempt to do next season and then you take it a phase and a day and a month at a time from there.”
