Sam Bradford Must Be the One for the St. Louis Rams: 2010 NFL Draft

With the draft a little more than a week away, all indications are Sam Bradford will be the next starting quarterback for the St. Louis Rams.

Bradford, standing at 6'4" 236 lbs, has the height and the size to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

After completing 62 of his 63 passes—the one incompletion being a drop—Rams General Manager Bill Devaney was very pleased with what he saw.

However, Devaney must temper his excitement with the reality that not only is drafting a "hot prospect" quarterback a risk, drafting said quarterback No. 1 overall is no guarantee of success.

Now Bradford's personality doesn't extrapolate out to Ryan Leaf bust type levels, but let's not crown him the next Peyton Manning just yet.

Bradford will have a learning curve ahead of him, and the fans must be patient with him as he goes through the struggles every rookie quarterback is going to go through.

Whether or not he'll start, if drafted obviously, remains to be seen. Rushing a rookie quarterback out there can result with a Joe Flacco as often as it can a Tim Couch.

But if Bradford is selected, and he lives up to the hype, then look out because Bradford will be kicking butt around the league for the next 15 years.

To review, Bradford completed 68 percent of his passes in his four years at Oklahoma, including 88 touchdowns and 16 interceptions.

His throwing shoulder has been surgically repaired, which is a legitimate concern, but considering the shoulder has had time to heal properly, and considering the surgery was done by Dr. James Andrews—considered the best in the business—his shoulder shouldn't be a factor going into the 2010 season or beyond.

At the end of the day, the Rams should select Bradford, let's just hope that the urge to take Ndamukong Suh doesn't come back to haunt the Rams later.

Either way, the Rams should acquire a quality player with the No. 1 pick, and two or three years from now, Rams fans hopefully will look back on the 2010 draft as the day things started to turn around.