St Louis Rams NFL Draft Poll Results: Clear Choice for No. 6 Pick in Rams Nation

St. Louis Rams fans have left no room for doubt, collectively, as to their overwhelming choice at No. 6 in the upcoming 2012 NFL draft.  

If their own NFL mock draft selection via my poll from last week is any indication, Oklahoma State's Justin Blackmon needs to run for political office and soon, because he dominated the polling in a landslide victory over three worthy opponents in a way that politicians dream of.

It is not to often that anyone attains over 55 percent of the vote when pitted against three other viable candidates, whether in a sports poll or a political vote.

However, Blackmon has beaten the odds and garnered the majority of the over 1,800 votes cast (thus far) within my article posted on March 21.  

In fact, no other option (Morris Claiborne, Matt Kalil or Trent Richardson) received even half as many votes as Blackmon did.  The following is the voting breakdown: 

• Blackmon: 55.1 percent
• Matt Kalil: 26.6 percent
• Trent Richardson: 12.2 percent
• Morris Claiborne: 6.1 percent

As is evidenced by the presentation of the numbers, Rams Nation clearly wants a wide receiver for Sam Bradford to throw to and a more productive offense than the one fielded in 2011. 

Interestingly, left tackle Matt Kalil dominated in terms of the disparity between himself and the No. 3 vote-getter (Richardson) at an equally impressive rate as Blackmon did over him.

Digging deeper, nearly 82 percent of participants cast their vote either directly (with Blackmon) or indirectly (with Kalil blocking on his blind side) to provide help for Bradford in the passing game.

Overall, nearly 94 percent of voters went with some type of offensive help.  That is of little surprise when considering that the Rams offense averaged just 12 points per game last season. 

The voting would tend to not only give a good indication of who St. Louis fans feel is most needed (as described above) but also how they would rate the players, from best to worst, if you will. 

With all that established, the followup question would be this: 

Regardless of who among the four aforementioned players might be available at No. 6—or if all were to theoretically be available—would you take any of them, or would you instead prefer to trade down?  

If trading down, St. Louis would solicit more picks to help bolster a roster with a plethora of holes.

Players who might be available and would look to be legit targets in the 10-20 range of the first round include Michael Floyd, Kendall Wright, Dontari Poe, Fletcher Cox, David DeCastro, Riley Reiff, Jonathon Martin, Dre Fitzpatrick, Stephon Gilmore and Melvin Ingram. 

According to the NFL draft value chart, a trade from No. 6 (1,600 points) to No. 16 (1,000 points) would yield the Rams with an additional 600 points of compensation.

To get approximately equal point value in return from a team picking at No. 16 (for example), a team would have to give up their second- and third-round pick this year or their second-rounder plus everything but their third (if possessing one pick in each subsequent round) to present at or nearly equal compensation.

Another option, of course, would be to throw St. Louis a combination of both 2012 and 2013 selections. 

Either way, if the Rams were presented with a similar trade offer as per the above and liked the options likely available at their prospective new drafting spot, it would be hard to blame them for moving down, just as it was when they took the Washington offer to move from No. 6 to No. 2 and the rights to Robert Griffin III.   

With a multitude of areas where roster upgrades are evident, trading down (again) makes all the sense in the world, especially if the St. Louis decision-makers like the prospective player pool there as well or nearly as well as those that would be available where they sit now. 

If the roster was currently loaded, and St. Louis were perhaps a player or two away, then trading down would seem less likely and perhaps unwise.  Staying put would seem likely.  Even a trade up could then be justified.  

However, the Rams are not yet in the position of needing one or two players to feel that a Super Bowl run appears like a legitimate possibility.  

However, if St. Louis can load up now, trading up could make all the sense in the world in 2013 and 2014 (when we are again armed with two first-round picks).

To me, this is a foundational year.  This is the year when we can really solidify the roster before tidying it up and focusing more specifically on individual players in the next two drafts.  

This is the year for St. Louis to seek good quality in high quantity in an effort to position itself to round off the roster, so to speak, in the next two offseason periods and to be highly aggressive and consider moving up for specific guys with those aforementioned weapons (two first-round picks in each of the next two years) locked and loaded. 

Shane Gray covers the St. Louis Rams year-round. You are encouraged to check out the rest of his work here and to follow him on Twitter.