Rams' Recent Draft Success Bodes Well For Hiring of Jaguars' GM James Gladstone

The Jacksonville Jaguars are entering a bold new age.

After a busy offseason, the Jaguars now have all of their decision makers firmly in place: head coach Liam Coen, Executive Vice President of Football Operations Tony Boselli, and new general manager James Gladstone.

Gladstone was the final piece to the puzzle, an endeavor the Jaguars finally completed on Friday when they selected Gladstone as Trent Baalke's official replacement.

There is certainty an aura of unknown surrounding Gladstone, the young and exciting general manager who is among the youngest in his role in the entire NFL. He was the least experienced of the Jaguars' 11 general manager candidates and eventual five finalists.

Gladstone was a big part of the Rams' scouting department's inner workings during his nine years in Los Angeles, but there is still more uncertainty around him than most general manager hires.

But for a Jaguars team that has already taken plenty of other pieces of the Rams' organizational DNA this offseason -- from the hire of Liam Coen as head coach to the hiring of Kevin O'Connell lieutenant Grant Udinski -- they can look to the Rams' success during Gladstone's denure as a big positive moving forward.

Despite wheeling and deal with first-round picks and rarely having the draft pick cache that other teams have, the Rams have consistently hit home runs in the draft over the last decade. In the last few years alone, the Rams have hit on picks such as Jared Verse, Braden Fiske, Kamren Kinchens, Beaux Limmer, Steve Avila, Byron Young, Kobie Turner, Puka Nacua, Kyren Williams, and Quentin Lake.

Only one player in that wildly impressive list was a first-round pick, for context. Few teams have scouted as well as the Rams over the last several years, and Gladstone was a direct and key part of their process. In a league where hitting on draft picks can change the entire course of a franchise, the Rams are one of the best scouting models in the entire NFL to attempt to replicate.

Gladstone is stepping into the No. 1 role for the first time in his career, but he knows what he is looking for. He would not have been such an important piece of the Rams' front office without being able to.

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