2012 NFL Draft Order: Rams Need No. 1 Pick More Than Colts

Two weeks ago, the Indianapolis Colts seemed to have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft pretty well under wraps.

Yet here they are suddenly riding a two-game win streak. Depending on who you ask, that either makes them fools or...well, something other than fools.

The Minnesota Vikings won their third game of the season on Saturday, and the Los Angeles Times claims that they are no longer a contender for the No. 1 pick. That leaves the Colts and the St. Louis Rams as the final two contenders for the pick.

If the Colts lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 17, the No. 1 pick is theirs. If they beat the Jaguars and the Rams lose to the San Francisco 49ers, the No. 1 pick belongs to the Rams.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the Colts need the No. 1 pick more, as they need to draft Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck to be an heir apparent to Peyton Manning. The Rams, on the other hand, have Sam Bradford. If they put a quality team around him, they'll be ready to contend.

And that's exactly why it's more important for them to end up with the No. 1 pick. They won't be able to draft a quality team with it, but they may be able to trade for one.

Make no mistake, the Rams are not going to draft Andrew Luck if they end up with the No. 1 pick. They already have Sam Bradford, and keeping both him and Luck on the payroll would be next to impossible. And after the season he's had, the Rams would find trading Bradford to be awfully difficult.

Trading the No. 1 overall pick won't be difficult at all. All sorts of teams will be interested in trading for a chance to draft the best quarterback prospect in a generation, and some of them will have more to offer than others.

If the Rams are lucky, they'll get a team willing to do a Herschel Walker or Ricky Williams type deal. With enough players and enough picks coming their way, the Rams will be able to give their rebuilding effort a huge boost.

If the Colts don't get the No. 1 overall pick, it won't be a disaster. They'll have Peyton Manning to fall back on, and they could use the No. 2/No. 3 draft pick to select the kind of high-ceiling prospect they haven't been able to select since Manning's arrival. If they wanted to, they could also look to make a trade.

If Manning comes back strong, my assumption is that the Colts will get back to winning. If this season has taught us anything, it's that Manning truly was that good. Even if he's not as strong as he once was, he'll still be better than a good portion of the league's quarterbacks.

Bradford could be on Manning's level some day, but he needs help. As great as Manning is, he got a lot of help from players like Marvin Harrison, Edgerrin James, Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark, and let's not forget that he spent the better part of his career behind a rock-solid offensive line.

The only real asset Bradford has at his side right now is Steven Jackson, and he's starting to age a little. Bradford has no offensive line ahead of him, and no talent whatsoever at the wide receiver position. It doesn't help that the Rams' defense has issues of its own.

Conceivably, trading the No. 1 pick would allow the Rams to fix these holes and to start contending right away. They certainly won't be ready to contend unless they fix these holes and drafting one player would only solve part of the problem.

On the flipside, the one player the Colts would draft with the No. 1 pick would probably sit on the bench for a few seasons. That's not drafting a need. That's drafting a luxury.

The Rams have a long way to go before they are at the point where they can start drafting luxuries.