Todd McShay: Why the LA Rams Could Blow Up the First Round of the NFL Draft

Todd McShay leans into a draft scenario nobody is reporting yet, and he wants it on the record. The team that could blow up the first round in the best possible way, he tells Rich, is the Los Angeles Rams. The hook is wide receiver philosophy. McShay frames it like attraction, with some prospects you find beautiful and others your neighbor finds beautiful, and the Rams have a clear type. Toughness, run after catch, contact balance. That is why Matthew Golden, the Texas burner Rich and the room have been chewing on, does not quite line up with what Les Snead and Sean McVay actually buy.

McShay points out that this draft has the Rams' kind of receiver buried in round two. Tre Harris is the obvious comp. He floats Tre Harris, Jaylin Noel, and Jeremiah Smith pieces aside, then lands on a different name in Tre'Veyon Henderson and a deeper sleeper, Jeremiah Love out of Notre Dame. If the Rams can grab their wide receiver in the second round, the 13th pick suddenly turns into trade capital.

That is where the bomb goes off. McShay paints a path where Los Angeles trades up from 13 to 3, sends a 2027 first to a division opponent, and goes get a difference maker. He says the language out loud. Why do they care about a 2027 pick if it is all in on 2025? Rich pushes back on the price. Moving from 13 to 3 is expensive on its own, and there has to be a divisional upcharge to do business with the Cardinals. McShay nods. That is the tough part. Arizona would tell itself it just bought extra insurance for the rebuild.

He also drops a name he is hearing internally that the Rams quietly like. Ty Simpson, the Alabama backup. He admits it does not fit any of the other reporting, so he files it as a curiosity rather than a prediction. The receiver math is the real story.

The two also kick around Jeremiah Love as the actual prize at 3, the kind of running back who would change the offense even with Kyren Williams and Blake Corum already on the roster. McShay concedes the redundancy but argues impact wins. Rich plays it straight, processing the trade math out loud, and you can hear him decide McShay might actually be onto something.

It is classic pre-draft McShay. No source name attached, just pattern recognition stacked on team-build logic, then a willingness to say the loud part. The Rams have a type, they have a 2027 pick they do not need, and they have a division rival sitting at 3. If that math holds, the first round breaks open exactly the way nobody has written yet.