St. Louis Rams fans hopeful for a Sammy Watkins-Tavon Austin tandem, please turn away.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “all indications are” that the Rams will pass up on the opportunity the draft Watkins with the second overall pick this Thursday.
St. Louis has invested a lot of draft picks in wide receivers in recent drafts, including moving up to the No. 8 slot in order to nab Austin in the 2013 NFL Draft. In the past two drafts, the team has used four picks on four wide receivers, all in the first four rounds.
If and when the Houston Texans announce Jadeveon Clowney as their top pick, the Rams are not expected to go after Watkins, the consensus top wide receiver in the 2014 class. The XN Sports Mock Draft 3.0 instead projects the Rams to land the top-rated offensive tackle Greg Robinson or trade out of that spot.
The notion of a Watkins-Austin pairing is enticing for the Rams, and according to the report, that are people within the organization pushing to draft the former Clemson wideout, especially considering the fact the team has lacked a strong wide receiver tandem since the days of Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt.
But according to beat reporter Jim Thomas, the team needs to be patient with the young crop of wide receivers the organization has spent draft picks on recently.
For one, maybe the wide receiver corps is better than given credit for and a little more patience is needed. There’s just one season to judge Austin and Bailey (class of 2013), and only two years to judge Quick and Chris Givens (class of ‘12.)
Future Hall of Famer Marvin Harrison, for example, didn’t have a 1,000-yard receiving season until 1999 — his fourth year in the league, with Indianapolis.
One veteran NFL scout, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the current Rams receiver corps is better as a group than his team’s group. (His team, by the way, is not picking in the top 10.)
Both Austin and Stedman Bailey, taken in the first and third round of last year’s draft, respectively, are about the enter their second years in the league. Brian Quick and Chris Givens are about to be third-year players. Quick was the 33rd overall selection in 2013.
The team also signed veteran Kenny Britt, a former first-round pick of the Tennessee Titans, in the offseason.
