Morning Distribution for Friday, November 19, 2021

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Morning Distribution]( Friday, November 19, 2021 Your daily briefing from FiveThirtyEight --------------------------------------------------------------- The Morning Story [Tampa Bay Buccaneers v Los Angeles Rams]( [The Rams Love Trading Early Draft Picks. How Much Value Do They Find In The Later Rounds?]( By [Josh Hermsmeyer]( The Los Angeles Rams are built differently. In a league that tends toward conservatism and groupthink, Rams general manager Les Snead is nothing short of a wild-eyed contrarian. For years, the received wisdom in the NFL has been that building a successful team over the long term requires a star quarterback coupled with good, cheap, young players that provide surplus value over the period of their rookie deals. This structure allows a team to compete year in and year out, and it provides cap space to fill any gaps formed through injury or ineffectiveness by paying up for players at positions of need in free agency. Or at least that’s how conventional thinking goes. Snead and the Rams have taken a different approach — one that’s fascinating in its divergence from NFL norms. Instead of coveting early round picks — particularly first-rounders, which have the best chance of providing a team with those crucial inexpensive young players — Snead has made a practice of trading them away. Whenever an opportunity arises to acquire a proven player on an expiring deal (often with a more expensive contract looming on the horizon), he’s had no issue with dealing first- and second-round picks. Snead’s run of trading off premium picks began in 2016. After trading away the Rams’ 2016 and 2017 first-round picks to move up 14 spots to [draft Jared Goff]( first overall in 2016, Snead has dealt a first-round pick in [each year since](. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: What 44 Days In Las Vegas Taught Nate Silver]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.