Rams 'Don't Care'? Coach McVay's 'I'm Not Going to the Combine!' Draft Take - Explained
The conventional way is easy to understand and easy to defend. Teams should attend the NFL Scouting Combine because teams should be interested in grabbing every single piece of information on every single player as part of their pre-Draft evaluation.
The Los Angeles Rams, however, are going to once again defy convention.
McVay has not attended the annual event in Indianapolis since 2020, making him an outlier among his peers. Not that that will influence his future decisions in any way.
"I’m not going to the Combine," said coach Sean McVay on Thursday, continuing an organizational trend that dates back to 2020. "As it relates to just the evaluation, the tape is the best guide. I do think that those other things are good metrics, but we're asking guys to play football not run track and field. It is something that's a measurable, but it's not as important as some of the other things for us.”
Our colleague Jourdan Rodrigue at The Athletic has spent some time breaking down the logic (see below).
And she writes now, "When this story came out there was a “Rams don’t care about the all-star events” narrative, which couldn’t be further from the truth. There is massive value - just in different ways, in accordance to their priorities ...''
The argument in favor of "The Rams Way''?
Since McVay began skipping the trip to Indy, his Rams have made the playoffs twice in three seasons and won a Super Bowl. And they have habitually nailed some picks, gaining star-caliber players (Kobie Turner, Kyren Williams, Puka Nacua) without the benefit of first-round picks.
This year, the Rams do have a first-rounder in April. But the process will remain the same.
"The most important thing is what the tape looks like,'' McVay said, "and then what is the vetting and the human being.''
What is L.A., led by GM Les Snead and McVay, looking for?
Said McVay: "It's people that are tough. It's people that cannot allow the outside circumstances to dictate their response. But there's a steadiness, there's a commitment to core values and principles, they love football, they want to keep the main thing the main thing.''
And so the Rams are going to keep their Combine-free habit their Combine-free habit.
