Fantasy Football Rankings: Rams Players You Should Draft, Avoid This Season

Editor?s note: To help you prepare for your fantasy football draft, NESN.com will profile each NFL team and analyze which players are worth picking and which players aren?t worth your time. Today, we look at the Rams.

Just because the Rams moved to Hollywood doesn’t mean their players became A-list fantasy football stars. In fact, they might actually have been better off leaving many of them in St. Louis.

In advance of the upcoming fantasy season, we took a closer look at the Los Angeles Rams players you should draft, avoid and peg as sleepers.

DRAFT-WORTHY
Todd Gurley, Running Back: Gurley is a stud and all-around special football player. Despite missing three games and parts of several others, Gurley finished as the fifth-best running back in fantasy last season. He’s currently going sixth overall as the second running back off the board. He’s an excellent pick wherever you get him. We’d personally opt for an elite wide receiver (Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham Jr., Julio Jones) or Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell (especially in PPR leagues) over Gurley in the first few picks, though.

Rams Defense/Special Teams: The Rams are kind of hit or miss, and they let a few veteran players go. Defense has been this group’s best asset over the past couple seasons, though, and we don’t expect that to completely change. They finished as the 12th-highest scoring D/ST last season and are going as the 15th defense in the 15th round right now. Aim for a better defense to start, but if you’re someone who likes to draft two defenses (we really don’t), L.A. isn’t a bad backup.

Tavon Austin, Wide Receiver: This is a tough one. When you think of players you’d like to have on your fantasy team, Austin doesn’t jump out at you. At all. What does jump out, though, is his 10 total touchdowns last season (four rushing, five receiving, one return). He had a knack for the end zone on a mediocre squad that didn’t do much to upgrade its offense aside from drafting quarterback Jared Goff No. 1 overall. Austin’s 52 receptions led the team, which is pretty sad, but he might end up being Goff’s favorite target. He’s going in the 14th round and we’d be hard-pressed to take him any earlier and as anything more than an extra backup.

AVOID
Nick Foles, Quarterback: Even if he starts the season with his job, he won’t end the year with it. Goff is the future and the impending present for Los Angeles.

Kenny Britt, Tre Mason, Benjamin Cunningham, etc.: The Rams aren’t a good team, and these are reserve players that don’t get many touches on an offense that doesn’t spend a lot of time actually on the football field. No one else really is reliable enough to draft.

SLEEPER
Jared Goff, Quarterback: Maybe you get lucky and he lights it up in his first NFL season, but Goff still is a rookie quarterback on a ground-and-pound team with virtually no one to throw to. He’s being taken in the 13th round as the 22nd quarterback before guys like Marcus Mariota, Alex Smith, Ryan Tannehill, Joe Flacco and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Why? If you’re even taking a backup QB, it should be due to carefully-planned bye-week replacements, trustworthy spot starts against bad defenses or as someone reliable in case your injury-prone starter gets injured. There’s nothing less reliable than a rookie quarterback in the NFL. We’ve got Goff listed as a sleeper because there’s no one else in L.A. even interesting enough to consider here right now, but we don’t think he’s worth wasting a draft pick on.

Thumbnail photo via Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports Images