In wake of the Los Angeles Rams acquiring the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft from the Tennessee Titans, Stats & Info looks at historical precedent for this type of a transaction.
From the 1990 draft until now, this is the sixth time an NFL team has traded to acquire the No. 1 pick. Twice the traded No. 1 pick ended up being a quarterback: Jeff George by the Colts in 1990 and Michael Vick in 2001 by the Falcons. The Falcons' move up in 2001 was the last time a team traded for the No. 1 pick.
In 2004, the player chosen with the No. 1 pick -- Eli Manning -- was traded to another team (the New York Giants), but that was after he was drafted by the Chargers.
Going back to the 1970 draft, there was one additional instance of a quarterback being taken No. 1 after a team traded for the pick: Steve Bartkowski, drafted by the Falcons in 1975.
Teams trading into the top five recently have a mixed history on the success of those picks. The two to make the jump in the last 10 seasons selected a quarterback who is no longer with that team.
The Rams were on the other end of a trade that involved a top-two pick four years ago, when the Washington Redskins traded up to select Robert Griffin III with the second pick in the 2012 draft.
The Rams received three first-round picks and a second-round pick in return, eventually trading down with some of those picks to turn them into eight players: Alec Ogletree, Janoris Jenkins, Stedman Bailey, Michael Brockers, Greg Robinson, Isaiah Pead, Zac Stacy and Rokevious Watkins.
The Rams have never picked first when in Los Angeles, although they picked Orlando Pace No. 1 in 1997 while based in St. Louis. In fact, no football team based in Los Angeles has picked first in the common draft era (began with the 1967 draft).
The Rams are moving up from the 15th position in the draft – a relatively long leap. (The Falcons, for example, moved up from No. 5 in their 2001 trade with the Chargers to select Michael Vick.)
In 1984, the New England Patriots traded the Nos. 16 and 28 picks, a 10th-round pick and a 1985 fifth-round pick to the Cincinnati Bengals for the top pick, which the Patriots used to select Irving Fryar.