The Rams tried to leapfrog the Vikings on draft night

After it became clear that the Minnesota Vikings were not going to give up a ton to move up in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft, the fear among some purple fans. . .yours truly included. . .was that another team would jump into the top ten to snipe quarterback J.J. McCarthy before the Vikings could get him. Thanks to a new video from the NFL, we can see that nearly became a reality.

In conjunction with the release of the new league documentary NFL Draft: The Pick Is In, we’ve gotten a behind the scenes look at some negotiations between the New York Jets and the Los Angeles Rams that came when the Jets were on the clock at #10 overall.

The video shows that the Rams offered the Jets their first-round pick at #19 overall as well as their second round pick at #52. The Jets’ front office ponders things for a bit and then decides to place a call to Minnesota, giving Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and company the opportunity to offer the deal that the Jets ultimately took for the Vikings to move up one spot. Apparently, the Jets decided that moving all the way down to #19 was too large a drop to take.

Now, I don’t know for sure if McCarthy was the Rams’ target in their quest to trade up, but I do know that’s who the Vikings wound up taking at #10. McCarthy was the fifth quarterback off the board in the first ten picks, and the Denver Broncos then took Bo Nix at #12. The next quarterback wasn’t taken until somewhere in the 170s, so had the Vikings not managed to make that deal they may have been forced to either settle for Nix or not take a quarterback of any real value at all in the 2024 NFL Draft. If McCarthy was the object of the Rams’ trade up attempts, that is.

I always enjoy seeing these looks behind the curtain at how things work in the NFL, particularly when it comes to things like the NFL Draft. Now, we know just how close the Vikings came to what could have been classed as a complete disaster in this year’s first round.