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Alexander: With everything else going on, it’s NFL draft night

April 27, 2023

In a crazily busy sports springtime in the most diverse market on this continent, with the NBA and NHL playoffs and baseball going full tilt and the LPGA tour making a second visit to L.A. within a month on this weekend, among other things … well, of course we’re talking football. The NFL never takes time off, you know.

So, what is there tangible to discuss in the run-up to Thursday night’s draft in Kansas City?

The Chargers have the 21st pick. Most of the mock drafts seem convinced it will be used on defensive help or another target for Justin Herbert. And the last we heard, General Manager Tom Telesco was noncommittal about whether he was going to lug the surfboard that seems to be his lucky draft talisman to the team’s draft party Thursday at the Westfield Century City Atrium.

“I haven’t even thought about that yet,” Telesco said at his pre-draft availability earlier in the week. “I’ve been pretty busy.”

The surfboard made its first appearance during the 2020 proceedings amid the pandemic, when Telesco was working from home and the team-branded board appeared over his shoulder while he was interviewed after picking Herbert with the No. 6 pick overall after the Miami Dolphins had selected Tua Tagovailoa at No. 5. With that success in mind, the board made it to the draft room at the Chargers’ Costa Mesa facility in 2021 and to their draft party at SoFi Stadium last April, both of which have been bountiful drafts.

We’re guessing it’ll somehow find its way to Century City, where the war room will be set up and Telesco and Coach Brandon Staley will be available after Thursday night’s pick is announced.

As for the Rams? They’ve again secured a house to use as their draft “lab,” this time in Tarzana. The 10,000-square foot residence includes a movie theater, putting green, pool, outdoor bar and fire pit, and given that the Rams will be idle on Day 1 barring an unexpected (read: shocking) trade that gets them back into the first round, those amenities might be useful.

The Rams also have a huge gap between their third-round pick, No. 77, and their fifth-round selection, No. 167. They have 11 picks all told, four compensatory selections for the losses of free agents, and all but three come in the final three rounds.

“I think a lot of people on our staff would love for us to at some point move back to cover some of that gap,” General Manager Les Snead said this week. “It’s always a beneficial option based on accumulating more picks, maybe filling that gap. But you can always trade up too from the fifth round into those gaps so there’s many ways to accomplish that.

“And at the end of the day, it’s going to be, ‘Hey, when we get on the clock is there a trade partner? Is there not? Is there a player in that moment that we really feel good about and we want to make a Ram.”

The dilemma: The Rams could be in the market for a quarterback, which sounds funny considering that Matthew Stafford won them a Super Bowl two seasons ago and appears to be back to full health. But Stafford is also 35 and has 14 seasons of tread on his tires. Snead is daring enough to try to get into the first round, but daring enough to trade a batch of future first-round picks to get a shot at, say, former Rancho Cucamonga High and Ohio State standout C.J. Stroud, Florida’s Anthony Richardson, or Kentucky’s Will Levis?

Forget Alabama’s Bryce Young, the former Mater Dei High standout who is expected to be the No. 1 selection. Carolina spent plenty to get that pick – specifically, sending wide receiver D.J. Moore, two first-round picks and two second-rounders to Chicago – and the only way the Rams could wrest that away might be to trade Cooper Kupp, Aaron Donald, and two or three future No. 1’s to the Panthers. Better, maybe, to wait a year and take a run at USC’s Caleb Williams next spring when they’ll have their own first-rounder to spend?

For the Chargers’ Telesco and his staff, at 21 there are options.

A survey of 35 mock drafts – out of, what, hundreds of lists that professional and amateur draft geeks have compiled and will be revising right up to Thursday night’s first pick – revealed a little bit of consensus. Twelve different players were listed as probable/potential/bear-with-me-because-I’m-guessing picks, and Boston College wide receiver Zay Flowers (9), USC’s Jordan Addison (6), and tight ends Dalton Kincaid of Utah and Michael Mayer of Notre Dame (5 apiece) were on the most lists. Penn State cornerback Joey Porter Jr. (3) was the only other player listed more than once.

As to the suggestion that the Chargers might be looking at additional running back help while Austin Ekeler’s trade request plays out, Telesco said at his pre-draft briefing that Ekeler’s situation wouldn’t change the team’s approach. Part of that likely goes back to the idea that running backs – even high-production ones – are replaceable in today’s NFL. And part of it is the idea that some players need a year or two to find their footing, as Ekeler once did.

“We had Joshua Kelley and Larry Rountree (III) here, then we drafted Isaiah Spiller last year,” Telesco said. “Isaiah kind of fits in the category of players from previous drafts having to step up and fill needs.

“Typically, like in this year’s draft, not a lot of these guys are going to come in and (immediately) fill a need. When you look at the draft, when you draft players in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth round, people think that they are going to come in and immediately fill a need. You hope that they come in and earn a role. But you’re really looking for players from previous draft classes to rise up, (for safety) JT Woods, (defensive back) Ja’Sir Taylor, Isaiah Spiller and some other guys, have those guys step into roles. We think that it’s a pretty good room right now, so I wouldn’t necessarily look at it like that.”

It’s worth noting that Kelley was a fourth-round pick in 2020, Rountree a sixth-rounder in ’21 and Spiller a fourth-rounder in 2022. In other words, for Telesco and particularly the Rams’ Snead, the real work will occur Friday and Saturday and the report card likely won’t be filled out until two to three years down the road.

Bottom line, given that strange things can happen in any draft? Be ready. (And, in Telesco’s case, bring the surfboard.)

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