The NFL Draft Wizard Twitter Experts 7-round Mock Draft (how's that for a name?) kicked off with a bang today, as the St Louis Rams and Cleveland Browns pulled off a deal to deliver Robert Griffin III into Pat Shurmur's hot little hands. The particulars:

Cleveland, GMed by Jesse Aubin (@nefinfan), sends the #4, #22, and #37 picks to the Rams in exchange for their #2 overall pick. More on the deal in a moment, but first, here's how the first four picks shook out:

1. Colts (@EugeneStasakJr) select QB Andrew Luck
2. Browns (@nefinfan) select QB Robert Griffin III
3. Vikings (@Lundar71) select OT Matt Kalil

No surprises so far, I think you'll agree. But the fourth pick presented a realm of possibilities for the Rams: notably, go for the best player available, or the best offensive player available? While a number of players intrigued from a skill position standpoint, ultimately I believe the Jeff Fisher / Les Snead approach to rebuilding is not going to be swayed by "need" the way the fans feel it.

Fisher and Snead inherit a team woefully bereft of "blue" players, the draftnik designation given to elite athletes who also happen to be damn good football players. Their number one mission in this draft and the next (and the next, and the next) has to be the acquisition of more of these types of players, regardless of the position they play.

I may not look like Les Snead, but I've got seven rounds of Rams picks to make just like he does.

You know the mock draft season has started in earnest when the Twitter-wide 32-team 7-round mock draft games start. That's exactly what we're in for this weekend, thanks to Neal Driscoll and NFLDraftWizard.com. There are some mock draft luminaries in the lineup, so I'll have my work cut out for me. Here is the lineup, division-by-division, with first round pick order highlighted.

NFC East
Dallas Cowboys (14): Alex Brown, OptimumScouting.com (@ABXXV25) 
New York Giants (32): @Jmpasq, DraftBreakdown.com 
Philadelphia Eagles (15): Chris Steuber, formerly of Scout.com (@ChrisSteuber)
Washington Redskins (6): Josh Buchanan, jbscouting.com (@JoshBDraft) 

NFC North
Chicago Bears (19): Jon Dove, BleacherReport.com (@Jon_Dove42)
Detroit Lions (23): Jared Counterman, nfldraft101.com (@JaredCounterman)
Green Bay Packers (28): Wes Stueve, BleacherReport.com (@WeStueve)
Minnesota Vikings (3): Jason Lundquist (@Lundar71)

NFC South
Atlanta Falcons (x): Koory Esquibel (@KooorryEsquibel)
Carolina Panthers (9): Erik Galko, OptimumScouting.com (@OptimumScouting)
New Orleans Saints (x): Jason Bernos, SaintsBlog.com (@berns247)
Tampa Bay Bucs (5): David Clemons (@nolefan2death)

NFC West
Arizona Cardinals (13): Cisco Holgate (@ciscoholgate)
San Francisco 49ers (30): Vincent Frank, BleacherReport.com (@VincentFrankNFL)
Seattle Seahawks (12): Doug Kyed, NEPatriotsDraft.com (@DougKyed)
St Louis Rams (2): Will Horton, RamsHerd.com (@RamsHerd) 

AFC East
Buffalo Bills (10): Jesse Bartolis, NFLMocks.com (@NFLMocks)
Miami Dolphins (8): Neal Driscoll, NFLDraftWizard.com (@NealDriscoll)
New England Patriots (27, 31): Mike Loyko, NEPatriotsDraft.com (@NEPD_Loyko)
New York Jets (16): Ralph Mancini, NFLDraftBible.com (@ReverendRalph)

AFC North
Baltimore Ravens (29): Kyle Casey, EndZoneReport.net (@EndZoneReport)
Cincinnati Bengals (21): Joe Goodberry, CincyJungle.com (@JoeGoodberry)
Cleveland Browns (4, 22): Jesse Aubin (@nefinfan)
Pittsburgh Steelers (24): Shane P. Hallam, DraftCountdown.com (@ShanePHallam)

AFC South
Houston Texans (26): Brandon Femia, MiamiDolphinsDraft.com (@BFem09)
Indianapolis Colts (1): Eugene Stasak Jr, ginosdrafttalk.wordpress.com (@EugeneStasakJr)
Jacksonville Jaguars (7): Steve Palazzolo, ProFootballFocus.com (@PFF_Steve)
Tennessee Titans (20): Jim Fitzgerald (@Forewasabi)

AFC West
Denver Broncos (25): Derek Tunnicliff (@derektunnicliff)
Kansas City Chiefs (11): Jinx Allessio (@JinxAllesio)
Oakland Raiders (x): Neal Driscoll, NFLDraftWizard.com (@NealDriscoll)
San Diego Chargers (18): Mike Fast, BleacherReport.com (@MichaelFast1)

Incidentally, trade lines are wide open in this one. Bidding for Robert Griffin III starts in 3... 2... 1...  

Is this the year the St Louis Rams finally get their big man in the middle? With a number of defensive linemen rising in the 2012 NFL Combine, making for an unexpectedly strong class of DTs, signs could be pointing to "yes." The Rams famously passed on Ndamukong Suh in the 2010 draft in favor of their offensive linchpin, Sam Bradford. Both made immediate impacts on their new team, but the Lions did a much better job of building a team around Suh for second-year success and beyond.

Now, DT may be a key position for Jeff Fisher, who loves building teams around strength up the middle. But the player they get may depend on what kind of deal the Rams strike for the #2 overall pick. 

If they take a package from Cleveland that includes the #4 and #22, we could see a player like Mississippi State's Fletcher Cox slotting comfortably at that #22 spot. Cox is a 6'4" 298 pound interior lineman with pass-rush credentials, ready to step in and take over from Fred Robbins at the three technique. And as a healthy Fred Robbins showed in 2010, a strong player in that spot can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of the defense. 

However, the player to watch might be Dontari Poe, a 6'4" 346-pounder who can "play skinny" when he needs to punch through the line, or play wide when he needs to swallow up space. Poe is making waves at the Combine with his stunning speed (4.7 time in the 40, with 1.7 seconds in his ten-yard split) and strength (44 reps in the bench press).

"I love the weight room," said Poe in interviews this weekend. "It’s something I got into in high school because people always used to say college players are way bigger, faster, stronger. When you get to college, they say the NFL is way bigger, faster, stronger. I never let up on it." 

A player that can carry that weight and strength might have Jeff Fisher seeing shades of Albert Haynesworth (who stood 6'6" 320 lbs as a rookie) all over again. But how high will he go? If the Rams make a deal with the Redskins for the #6 pick, they may be tempted to trade down a few more spots and lock this player up in the top ten. 

However, the most notable player known to be linked to the Rams already is 6'5" LSU sophomore Michael Brockers. With his huge projectable frame, Brockers at one point was considered one of the top prospects at the position. If you squint your eyes a bit and project out a few years, that is. Brockers did not help himself yesterday, though, with a largely indifferent combine and flashing few of the skills to make anyone think he has pass rush potential down the road.

However, the Rams sought him out for a reason, and his slide should make him available as a consolation prize in the second round, if they miss out on one of the top players. 

It wasn't quite Julio Jones-spectacular, but Michael Floyd had himself a very good combine.

While writing up the biggest risers and fallers among WRs in the NFL Combine for ThisGivenSunday, it was hard not to take notice of the very good day Notre Dame's Michael Floyd had. In a way, this was his Super Bowl, an opportunity to flash his impressive physical frame and collection of straight-line skills and separate himself physically from the rest of the WRs in the first-round conversation. 

His impressive day made me take some time to rethink my long-standing grudge against Floyd where it comes to the St Louis Rams and their obvious need for a #1 receiver. 

Obviously, the first red flag people will raise is with his character, thanks to a DUI arrest. That bothers me less than reports that question his commitment or his consistency. But I also have a tendency to discount offensive talent from ND as being naturally over-hyped, and have rarely been proven wrong in recent history with Jimmy Clausen, Brady Quinn and Golden Tate falling far short of their hype.

Floyd may prove the exception to that rule, and may show that he has gained a maturity from his troubles over the past year that make him all the more pro-ready. Only time will tell on those fronts. Mike Mayock is a bias-free analyst, and appears impressed with Floyd's dedication to the game, lauding him for cleaning himself up on and off the field."

The interesting variable in calculating the Rams' interest level in Floyd is to weigh their similar interest in Brandon Lloyd. At the Combine, Jeff Fisher confirmed that the Rams would at least make an effort to resign their top target. However, he didn't exactly show his cards in terms of how seriously they intend to pursue the free agent. 

The obvious question is how much the Rams need a 31-year-old wideout who ate up targets but didn't exactly light the turf on fire here. I expect Floyd to land as a near-finished product that, like AJ Green, will demand a majority of snaps. Indeed, it may make sense to line Floyd up at the X as often as possible and jump start the chemistry experiment between he and Sam Bradford, as the Bengals did with AJ Green by clearing out all of his competition for playing time. 

By contrast, if the Rams are serious about making a push for Brandon Lloyd, it may signal that they will be looking for more of a complementary piece on offense, someone like Kendall Wright (whose stock fell this weekend but still has a mountain of quality tape) who needs a player like Lloyd on the opposite sideline to succeed.

Could the Rams go after Lloyd and Floyd and give Bradford a sudden upgrade in weaponry? Possibly, and that would seem to fit with the Jets' strategy of accumulating weapons for Mark Sanchez during Brian Schottenheimer's time there. But I'm not sure it passes the chemistry test, a priority for Jeff Fisher's teams, and something the Jets have failed at. Both players are target-hungry receivers, and this offense may not be designed to feed both of them enough to justify a double-down investment. 

Sam Bradford will get one-on-one coaching for the first time since Dick Curl was let go. Photo by Chris Lee, Post-Dispatch.

The Rams followed through on Jeff Fisher's commitment to hire a quarterbacks coach this week, reportedly recruiting former Rutgers offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. The move is welcome just from the standpoint of having this position filled, and a Ram-nation-wide panic finally quelled. But his resume, like Brian Schottenheimer's, winds a long path through mediocrity.

The Rams may be getting more stable offensively under Jeff Fisher, but are they getting better? 

Mike Sando tells us that Schottenheimer's offense is based on Don Coryell's numbers-based scheme (like half of the offenses in the NFL), but his specific mentors were Jerry Rhome (Martz's predecessor here in St Louis) and Jimmy Raye in Washington. Both offenses trended toward bland, befuddled messes. But nevertheless, having a quarterbacks coach familiar with that terminology would seem to be a prerequisite. For Cignetti, that experience was learned from the scraps of Norv Turner's playbook being held by Jim Hostler (a former college teammate) in San Francisco.

Yes, that Jim Hostler, and that San Francisco. This was 2007, or year four in the seven-year revolving-door method of bringing along Alex Smith. Cignetti was his quarterbacks coach for one year, before departing to Pittsburgh. And to say that Alex Smith and the offense struggled under Hostler would be putting it mildly. Notably, Hostler's offense did not contain the concept of the "hot read" - you know, the basic concept of finding a receiver to throw to when you identify a blitz. 

Smith was sacked 17 times in 210 dropbacks that year. If Smith had thrown in that offense as often as Bradford did in his rookie season, he would have been sacked 50 times. Hopefully, as quarterbacks coach during that carnage, Cignetti picked up a few lessons on what not to do.  

Bradford is now entering his fourth offensive system in as many years, dating back to his days in Oklahoma, and appears to be on a dangerously similar path. The hope is that this hire, and the stability brought to the team overall by Fisher's presence, will save Bradford from further experience in the "confuse-a-cat" method of coaching. 

But Fisher's offensive tendencies in the past have never typically required quarterback heroics, preferring creativity and power in the running game. And here, ironically for Bradford's development, is where Cignetti and Schottenheimer have both excelled. 

We will  have to wait and see how this offense shapes up, and what new pieces are added to it in the draft and free agency. But if Cignetti's past experience is any guide, we're not sure Bradford needs any more help in knowing how to hand off, or how to pick himself up off the turf. 

For Josh McDaniels, returning to the New England Patriots after architecting the NFL's worst offense with the St Louis Rams must have felt like waking up from a horrible nightmare. At first. Before his moment of redemption in the Super Bowl was taken down by the same freak occurrence that haunted his existence in St Louis: dropped passes.

There's no more damaging thing to an offensive coordinator than a drop. You can drill players until you're hoarse in training camp (as McDaniels did) to get them to understand their routes, their timing, and the fine points of execution. You can put your quarterback and receiver on a metronome until the footwork, the head fake, the precision-timed crossing routes are run to perfection.

Then the ball arrives.

As I wrote over at ThisGivenSunday.com in our Super Bowl analysis. Wes Welker's drop appeared to introduce a contagious panic among Patriots receivers. Immediately after Welker's drop, Deion Branch got separated from the ball by Corey Webster to force a punt. Hernandez dropped Brady's first pass of the next drive, Branch dropped another, and Brady was sacked while trying to buy time on a third.

Suddenly the Patriots faced fourth down, literally and figuratively, as the clock and their hopes for winning eroded away.

It was a scene that was all too familiar to Rams fans. It was pretty much the summary of our entire season, and Sam Bradford's nightmare passing year in particular. While injuries limited him to 399 dropbacks, he lost more yards to dropped passes per game than any other quarterback in the NFL, according to stats kept by ProFootballFocus. And it started in week one, with a Lance Kendricks drop on the team's second drive of the year. 

Kendricks' drop on a simple swing pass out of the backfield was the first of a mind-boggling eight passes from Bradford that were flat-out dropped in this game. If panic is contagious, this was an epidemic worthy of the CDC. And it went counter to the way the Rams wanted to build.

In April, McDaniels and the Rams made a statement in the draft - that the current crop of pass catchers wasn't good enough. And the common factor among each of the players drafted in the second, third and fourth rounds - Kendricks, Austin Pettis and Greg Salas - was the quality of their hands. The Rams went out of their way to build a "good-hands" team, centered around Wes Welker's clone in blue and gold, Danny Amendola.

Amendola did his job for 45 minutes of the 2011 season, catching five of the six passes sent his way. Then he pivoted awkwardly on his left arm, dislocating an elbow and ending his season.

Among the rest of the Rams receivers, only Greg Salas had a catch percentage higher than 60% the rest of the way. (Supposed savior Brandon Lloyd had 7 drops by himself and a 48.6% catch rate.) And the group accounted for 31 dropped passes, by far the most in the NFL.

Can drops be coached out of a team? I don't know the answer to that. Would a few more catches have prevented the plague of injuries that kneecapped the Rams' season and dropped the guillotine on our coach and general manager? Probably not. But the offense would certainly been better, we would probably have a few more wins on the season, and it's possible that the marriage of Bradford and McDaniels might have stuck.

So perhaps there was a drop of bitter justice for Rams fans that Josh McDaniels, Sam Bradford's runaway bride, found the same troubles waiting for him in New England as he did here in St Louis.

Officials don't want to see the St. Louis Rams leave the City of St. Louis. It has been both rumored and feared for a few months now that the Rams were planning on leaving St. Louis for the new NFL stadium, which is being built in Los Angeles.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is reporting that the St. Louis Convention and Visitor Commission delivered a plan to a St. Louis Rams, which gives details of improvements officials argue would make the stadium ONE OF THE BEST in pro football.

If accepted, by the Rams, the Convention and Visitor Commission would have to put up $124 million, which would go to hanging a 96-foot wide and a 26-foot high scoreboard over midfield. Also, they would build a three-story structure on Baer Plaza that would connect to the Edwards Jones Dome. It would include a 20,000 square-foot lobby, rooftop beer garden, and a new entrance for fans who're heading into the dome.

They will also install glazed window panels that would allow natural light inside the Edwards Jones Dome, as fans/critics have complained that it's too dark inside the dome.

The plan would replace 1,800 existing seats and four suites with 1,500 new club seats. They would also replace the outdoor smoking area with a fan tailgate area, minus the cars.

With the plan, the Rams would fund 52% of the improvements, the average contribution by NFL teams in recent new NFL stadiums construction and renovation projects. The plan doesn't identify where the rest of the money would come from to fund the project, but it's said that the agency would likely turn to the dome's owner, the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority, or the third so-called government sponsor, who paid to have the dome build.

The St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission unveiled a plan Wednesday that calls for $124 million in improvements to the Edward Jones Dome in hopes of making sure the city doesn't lose another NFL team.

The commission had faced a Wednesday deadline to deliver the plan to the St. Louis Rams, which leases the dome.

The lease requires the dome to be ''first tier,'' or among the top 25 percent of all NFL stadiums in several categories. If not, the Rams can break the lease after the 2014 season and potentially move. Owner Stan Kroenke is a Missouri native, but has been non-committal about staying in St. Louis.

With Los Angeles organizers actively seeking a team, St. Louis fans are worried the Rams might leave, just like the Cardinals did after the 1987 season.

''There are a lot of people who say this can't be like Jerry Jones' Cowboys Stadium,'' CVC director Kathleen Ratcliffe said. ''We're confident this proposal meets the requirement of first tier.''

Messages left with a spokesman for Kroenke were not returned. The Rams confirmed they had received the proposal.

''The lease provides certain terms, a timeline and a process for this matter,'' said Kevin Demoff, the team's executive vice president of football operations and COO. ''We are reviewing the proposal and look forward to responding accordingly.''

Highlights of the plan include:

• Adding a 96-foot-long, 27-foot-tall scoreboard over the center of the field, nearly as large as the one at Cowboys Stadium in Texas.

• Adding 1,500 club seats, along with new club lounges.

• New windows along the length of the field on both sides, creating more natural light.

• Adding a 50,000-square-foot attached building that would include a ''Geek Suite'' area for electronics buffs and fantasy football fanciers.

• Developing a massive courtyard between the dome and the adjoining convention center that would be ''almost like tailgating but without the cars,'' Ratcliffe said.

• Improvements to concessions and concourses.