It is no secret that the offensive line was hardly an area of strength for the Los Angeles Rams in the 2019 NFL season.
The Rams were able to avoid any significant turnover by re-signing left tackle Andrew Whitworth and center/guard Austin Blythe in free agency. Regardless, many expected head coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead to potentially explore shoring up some quality depth up front through the 2020 NFL Draft.
However, that was hardly the case after they used only one selection to take Clemson guard Tremayne Anchrum with the 250th pick in the seventh round. Their approach seems to be indicative of the confidence they have in the pieces that are available.
Snead says the Rams have done what they can to alleviate this by assembling former highly-touted prospects in recent years, via Stu Jackson of the team’s official website:
“When Sean mentioned yesterday trading for Austin Corbett, it was just a couple of years ago that he was the 33rd pick in the draft,” Snead said. “Even this year, we wouldn’t have been able to pick an Austin Corbett. We’ve been adding those players, and fortunately or unfortunately a lot of them got to play last year, with David Edwards and Bobby Evans in particular. They got a chance to play when we were really going to spend a year developing them as backups. We felt confident that if we continued grooming and developing these players, they’d have a chance to become a very solid offensive line.”
Snead’s comments just go to show the level of confidence both him and McVay have in offensive line coach Aaron Kromer. Of course, it remains to be seen just how much this group is capable of improving with the pieces at his disposal. After all, any chance at a potential resurgence from the offense in the 2020 NFL season will undoubtedly need to begin up front.
As Snead noted, one of the few silver linings that came out of this group sustaining so many injuries was that it allowed several young players a chance at some quality snaps early on. Although being thrown in right away was hardly ideal, the experience should certainly help pay huge dividends for them moving forward.
The question now is which of them have benefitted the most from the uptick in playing time. Aside from Whitworth, there could be some intriguing position battles taking place up front this offseason.
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