Who Would the Rams Draft in a 2012 Redraft?

The Los Angeles Rams were in a different place in 2012 than they are now, more than a decade later in 2025. Next season, the Rams are hoping to make the Super Bowl and win their second championship under Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford.

It wasn't always this way, and some of the lowest points in Rams history were in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Back then, they were still the St. Louis Rams. The 2012 draft could've been a turning point for the franchise, as in the year prior, they only won two games.

They traded away their high first-round pick in exchange for more draft capital later down in the draft. They ended up selecting Michael Brockers 14th overall, but who would they draft if they knew the future? Pro Football Focus released a 2012 redraft, and the Rams would rewrite history and draft Fletcher Cox instead.

"Cox’s 12-year career featured a run from 2014 to 2019 where he earned six straight 80.0-plus single-season PFF overall grades. He even recorded elite PFF pass-rush grades in 2015, 2017 and 2018. He was a six-time Pro Bowler and a four-time All-Pro before retiring after the 2023 campaign".

The draft position of this redraft is a bit wonky, as originally the Rams held the second overall pick which was then traded to the Washington Commaders (then known as the Washington Redskins), which then put them at sixth overall.

However, they would trade that pick with the Dallas Cowboys, which is how they ended up at 14, but in this redraft, their trade with Washington occurs, but not with Dallas. It's just an odd thing I noticed, but that shouldn't take away from how much of an upgrade this would've been for the Rams.

Brockers was a good player for the Rams; he played nine seasons for the Rams and only played less than 15 games once in his career with them. Yet, he was never able to match the statistics of Cox, and he would end up having a better career than Brockers.

Cox stayed with the team that originally drafted him, the Philadelphia Eagles, for his entire career, and if he had been drafted by the Rams, who knows if he would've stayed with them for 12 seasons like he did with the Eagles.

And yet, Cox matched Brockers' best year as a pro in his rookie season statistically, so any time Cox would've been on the Rams would've been helpful. As well, he would've played a portion of his career with Aaron Donald, and the two sharing the defensive line would've made the Rams much more dangerous, much earlier than it happened in real life.