Rams made the wrong side of history when they traded up for Braden Fiske

The Rams wanted to draft Braden Fiske so bad that they traded too much to get him

Did the Los Angeles Rams go too far in their desire to draft Florida State defensive end Braden Fiske in the second round on Friday? Probably, and a graph by ESPN’s analytics expert Seth Walder has visual proof of it.

When the Rams traded up from 52 to 39 last week and the details came out that L.A. gave up next year’s second round pick, I thought there must have been an error in the report. Teams do not trade second round picks to move up 13 spots in the second round. But Rams GM Les Snead did exactly that on Friday and there are two reasons that it really made no sense.

First, here is Walder’s graph that shows that per ESPN’s draft pick valuations, moving up from 52 to 39 by giving up a second and pick 155 is the biggest “overpay” by any draft trade in at least the last six years. Second place doesn’t look that close and third place is much lower:

In 2019, the Saints traded up from 62 to 48 by giving up a sixth and a future second round pick to get center Erik McCoy. The Dolphins eventually got back pick 56 in the 2020 draft, so it’s like they traded 56 and 62 to get to 48 with a 4th-6th pick swap.

Would you trade picks 56 and 62 to get to 48?

Some would say that yes, McCoy was a Pro Bowl center last year and that’s good enough to justify the trade. But it also shows that the Saints made the cardinal mistake of falling in love with one prospect and doing so in the middle of the second round, which is when the players are not separated by much, if any value. I understand New Orleans was looking at the board and McCoy was the only center in the draft they felt could start for them, but they could have also waited to see if McCoy dropped or filled that need with a serviceable center in the meantime.

It cost them a second round pick in 2020, a pick they could have used on a center. In fact, the Saints drafted interior offensive lineman Cesar Ruiz in the first round in 2020, so it’s like the McCoy pick didn’t even entirely fill their needs.

That’s the Saints case, but now we’re back to the Rams.

The Rams clearly fell in love with Fiske, which could be a mistake. The fact is that most analysts said that the 2024 class had a significant drop-off in value after the top-16 to 20 picks or so, which means that to the majority of NFL teams there wasn’t a high grade on Fiske. What the Rams probably saw was defensive tackle Johnny Newton went 36th, defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat went 38th, and Les Snead was worried that he wouldn’t get any of the defensive linemen he wanted in the second round.

Except that there was still Kris Jenkins, Maason Smith, Michael Hall, Marshawn Kneeland, Bralen Trice, Jonah Elliss…

Fans may see it as “No, this just means that Braden Fiske is the man for the job” but that’s breaking the cardinal rule of not falling in love with one player. If the Rams had made a normal trade up from 52 to 39, like sending back pick 99 or something, then fine. They made a normal trade. However, the Rams gave up a fifth and next year’s second rounder, which Snead and Sean McVay are clearly assuming will be a late second round pick even though they can’t know that yet.

So the first mistake is that Snead clearly gave up way too much to get Fiske, showing that he probably overrated the value difference between him and the next five or six players at his position to go off of the board. Furthermore, if the Rams are not drafting for need then it shouldn’t even matter what position Fiske plays and you’re not comparing him to Hall and Jenkins…now you’re comparing him to EVERY second round prospect. There’s very little chance that Fiske is far and way the highest-rated second round player on Snead’s big board for day two.

The second mistake is not trusting that waiting will work out. What if Fiske made it to pick 45 and the Packers would have let you move up for a fifth round pick alone? Did Snead get tricked into believing that Fiske was about to get picked? And even if that was true, so what? There are other Braden Fiske-level prospects in the second round. Plenty.

If you don’t believe that the Rams overpay now, wait until we get to day two of the 2025 draft and see if you still feel that way. Not just based on how Fiske plays, but based on how he plays compared to every other player who was picked 52nd or later.

It’s not just an opinion. It’s a graph.