If you're looking for draft value, the Senior Bowl is often a place to find it. By its name alone, you know exactly what it is, and what it isn't. The Senior Bowl isn't a collection of the most obscenely explosive talents in football -- those players almost always leave school as soon as they are able. But it is an assemblage of players who have refined their skills in four years of college competition, who are as fully developed as a college prospect can be. 

The electric underclassmen will have their time to shine in the NFL Combine, a month from now, and their names will surely float up draft boards. This week belongs to the savvy veteran, the well-honed tools, the patient and man-strong. 

If you have a young team like the Rams that is ready to compete, it may make sense to stock up on players that are near-professional caliber in their development, particularly in the value rounds (3-5). Here are three that caught my attention that will be worth paying attention to this week. 

Holding two picks at the turning point of the first round, who will the Rams target? No one knows, of course, but something approaching a consensus is emerging among the mock draft community. 

I surveyed a dozen mock drafts that have been released in the past week, and two players have been mocked to the Rams more than any other: Alabama guard Chance Warmack and Cal receiver Keenan Allen. Each has been mock-drafted for us five times. Meanwhile, Texas safety Kenny Vacarro (four times) and Alabama tackle DJ Fluker (three) have been popular selections as well. 

Of these players, Warmack is perhaps the least likely to be there for us. Somehow, the wide-girthed guard has managed to make quite a brand of himself, even going so far as to try to ignite "Warmacking" as a national trend. No mock draft has him slipping past the Rams; seven of the twelve I surveyed have him as a top ten pick. (The legendary Cowboys personnel evaluator Gil Brandt has him going fourth overall to the Eagles.) 

While Warmack is the star, the consensus around Keenan Allen's position at the head of the receiver class may be the most subject to change. In each of the drafts that mocked him to us, he was the first WR off the board. But other receivers such as Cordarelle Patterson, DeAndre Hopkins, Robert Woods or even Tavon Austin will be knocking on the door, once Combine numbers come in and the tape-grinders have their say. 

Here's a chart of picks by position, and the table of each mock's picks for us, after the break. 

Our resident master of media, Tim Shields, has been producing fantastic video breakdowns of key Rams plays all season long. Now, he is branching out once again, this time into sports radio. 

This Sunday evening, after the playoff games are over, I will be joining Tim on his new radio show (tentatively titled "Shields of Dreams") at KZOW 91.9 FM, Waldorf University Radio. Listeners outside the greater northern Iowa area can and should stream the show here: http://kzowfm.com/listen/. 

This will be the second ever edition of Tim's radio show. Last week's guest list included Kent Anderson, the Waldorf football team head coach, the legendary Joe McAtee (3k) of Turf Show Times, and NFL agent Jim Wyatt. If you didn't get a chance to hear it, and that's likely as the live stream was out of commission (it's since been fixed), you can listen to the archived audio here. 

For the team with the worst record in professional football just a year ago, playmakers are definitely in high demand for the St. Louis Rams.  With no real “elite” prospects at the wide receiver position and the Rams having more pressing needs at other positions, I would not be pleased if the Rams took a receiver in the first round.  There is one playmaker though that the Rams should seriously consider taking after day one of the 2013 NFL draft.   

Denard “Shoelace” Robinson

It is almost impossible to watch the above video and not wish to have that kind of athlete on your football team.  No I’m not saying to trade Sam and run the pistol option to keep up within our division; you need a quarterback who can accurately throw the ball for that to succeed and Robinson has already acknowledged that he doesn’t have the best arm out there.  Robinson will play receiver in the Senior Bowl despite not being very polished, catching only three passes in his career, but his elite speed and athleticism should prolong his longevity in the NFL.  Having that kind of talent can make you a very versatile player anywhere outside of the trenches.

One area that Robinson can come in and immediately contribute is in the return game.  According to Football Outsiders, the Rams are dead last in starting field position with 23.72 as their LOS/Dr (represents average starting line of scrimmage per drive).  That number should have been higher if we used WR Chris Givens or CB Janoris Jenkins more in the return game, but risking two starters to injury is something you should only do when the time calls for it.  Robinson has exceptional ball-carrier vision and can make something out of nothing which should help the Rams have better starting field position.

Following yesterday’s news that the Jacksonville Jaguars hired Gus Bradley, Rams fans can finally rest assured that Sam Bradford will not have his fourth offensive coordinator in as many years, and that Brain Schottenheimer will remain as the Rams' OC.  With Schottenheimer returning to the Rams, you can bet that the playbook will be expanded and should see a much more evolved offense that will do just more than keep games close. 

To have a sense of what we might expect to see in the 2013 season, we take a look at the personnel that Schotty had during his tenure with the New York Jets.  We have a tall possession receiver in Brian Quick (Edwards/Plaxico), a speedster who can evolve into a #1 threat with Givens (Holmes), a stable of veteran and young backs with the Jackson/Richardson/Pead trio (Tomlinson/Greene/Mcknight), and a Tight End showing some hands with Lance Kendricks (Keller). But who is our Brad Smith?

Well, Bob, here we are again. It’s the end of the year, and we’ve got guys whose contract with the Rams is up. It’s a fun time, isn’t it? I mean, fun for us, not so much for these guys who just spent five months getting the you-know-what beat out of them every week, and now they have to prove to us that they’re not too old or too beat up for us to pay them to do it again. But hey, it’s a part of life in this career. Don’t hate us for thinning the herd. We’re like lions. Or sharks. Nice sharks. Totally necessary to the ecosystem.

So, Danny Amendola? Here’s an interesting case. Really had three seasons in one this year. Let’s bring him in.

Veteran fantasy football drafters know about risk and reward. They know that waiting on a quarterback is a risk, as you let premier talents like Tom Brady and Drew Brees slip off the board. They know that drafting Peyton Manning, two years, one team change and at least four neck surgeries removed from his last NFL action, represented a huge risk, albeit one with potentially great rewards. Peyton's situation was unique, and there was little precedent to predict how many games he might play, or how well, before the ticking time bomb at the top of his spine went off. 

Ultimately, though, there was a place where risk met reward, where Peyton's potential and pedigree overcame the fear of making a team-crippling pick. From March until September, that point was deep in the fifth round in an average 12-team fantasy draft, about 60 picks later than in his pre-injury days. 

Fantasy drafters know the thrill and the fear associated with taking such a risk, with little more than pride on the line. What they don't know, and what NFL GMs have to deal with every April, is the weight of betting millions of your employer's dollars on taking (or not taking) a risk like that. 

Which brings us to the Rams, and a high-risk, high-reward player like Marcus Lattimore. Lattimore was perhaps the best running back in the country when he had his left knee blown out in 2011. He had surgery and rehabbed it and came back in 2012, only to have his right knee destroyed in a game against Tennessee.

It was an even more severe injury, one that had coach Steve Spurrier offering public consolations like "Good things will happen for Marcus Lattimore. I don't know in what field of life, but ... he's going to do well in whatever he does." Comparisons were made to the horrific injury suffered by high school quarterback Jacob Rainey. Irreparable arterial damage in Rainey's leg forced doctors to remove his leg above the knee.

Fortunately, Lattimore escaped the worst, and he decided to enter the NFL draft even though he might not play a down until 2014. And -- putting Manti Te'o's all-too-public Rorshach test to one side -- he represents one of the biggest risk-reward propositions in the draft. A potential franchise back available at a bargain price. Or potentially a guy who might never play a down of football again. 

If you were Les Snead, would you take the risk? Here's what our panel of writers had to say. 

Of yesterday's group of mock drafts released by the NFL.com pundits, none was more ominous than Albert Breer's, which called for zero quarterbacks to be drafted in the first round. Now, it appears that Mel Kiper is jumping on the bandwagon, as he releases his first mock draft of the season. (ESPN Insider link) 

The last time that happened was back in 1996, which means that one year after one of the greatest rookie QB classes of all time, this could go down as one of the worst. However, it was far from a draft devoid of talent. A number of franchise players emerged from that '96 draft, including Jonathan Ogden, Eddie George, Marvin Harrison and the seemingly immortal Ray Lewis. 

Moreover, the Rams don't need a quarterback, and there appear to be a number of talents at our team's positions of need. So why find this ominous? Because the 1996 draft was an unmitigated disaster for the Rams. 

The team opened its tenure in St Louis with three picks in the top fifty of that draft, but a series of unbelievably awful decisions ensured that those opening years would be filled with frustration and misery.

First, the Rams decided that their aging running back (Jerome Bettis) was losing steam, and decided to trade him away for a late second round pick. As his replacement, GM Steve Ortmeyer chose a one-dimensional back (Lawrence Phillips) who benefited from running behind the best offensive line in the game. 

2013 comparisons: Steven Jackson and Eddie Lacy

We're being kind (and fair to Lacy) by ignoring Phillips' well-documented problems with violence and discipline. And by not mentioning that the Oilers drafted Eddie George eight picks later. 

Second, the Rams sifted through one of the most well-regarded wide receiver classes in history, and chose the eminently forgettable Eddie Kennison, one pick before the Colts secured the long-term future of their passing game with Marvin Harrison. Perhaps the Rams felt that they already had a player like Harrison in Isaac Bruce? Rather than take the best player available, they filtered their draft lens for a "complementary player" with track star speed.  

2013 comparison: DeAndre Hopkins

Third, the Rams finally broke the seal on this quarterback class, by drafting Tony Banks in the second round. It was a reasonable decision, given that the Rams needed a young quarterback. But as we know, it did not work out. And of course, we saw another perennial Pro-Bowler selected just two picks later in Muhsin Muhammad. 

2013 comparison: Take your pick.

Fourth, the Rams finally made a good pick with an all-around player at tight end in Ernie Conwell. Sure, he lacked high-end star power, but he did provide reliable service to the Rams. But there's Brian Dawkins at the very end of the second round, who terrorized NFL backfields for more than a decade.  

2013 comparison: Ryan Otten

Still, though, the Rams batted a woeful one-for-four with these high impact picks, a pattern that was too-often repeated over the next decade and a half. (When you look back at our draft record, the Greatest Show era doesn't look artificially brief... it looks like a damn miracle that it ever happened to begin with.) 

This year, the lack of a great quarterback prospect means that many players that the Rams might covet, such as offensive linemen Luke Joekel, Chance Warmack and Jonathan Cooper, could be flying off the draft board well out of reach. Additionally, it means we won't have anywhere near the same trade value with picks 16 and 22, if neither is deemed worthy of a quarterback.

Les Snead and Jeff Fisher will have a tricky game to play this April, but therein lies the silver lining in this story. The Rams have legitimate front office personnel for the first time in memory, and the 2012 Rams draft was one of the most productive in the team's history. Hopefully we can repeat that trend, rather than the one of '96.