ST. LOUIS — Tampa Bay’s victory over Seattle on Sunday brought the St. Louis Rams one step closer to the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft.

With two games to play, the Rams are 1-13, with Tampa Bay (2-12) and Detroit (2-12) one game off the “pace” for the No. 1 overall pick. If the teams finish with identical records, the Rams currently have the strength of schedule advantage over Tampa Bay, but not over Detroit.
Rams opponents are 14 games over .500 and Tampa’s opponents are 26 games over .500, while Detroit’s are only six games over .500. If teams finish the season with identical won-loss records, strength of schedule is the draft position tiebreaker — the team that has played the easier schedule gets to draft first.
But unless the Rams spring an upset in their remaining games against Arizona and San Francisco, none of that will matter. They will have the No. 1 pick for the first time since 1997, when they traded up from the No. 6 spot to take left tackle Orlando Pace.
Rams general manager Billy Devaney makes no secret of the team’s interest in Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. But he stopped short of saying Suh was at the top of the Rams’ draft board as suggested recently by Peter King of Sports Illustrated.
“We don’t have a frickin’ board,” Devaney said.
At least not yet.
“Peter asked me: ’Is he your highest-rated guy?’ “ Devaney said. “I said, ’If you ask me now — ask anybody — who the best player is, you’d probably have to say it’s him. But we have a long way to go. There’s juniors that haven’t declared yet. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. But right now he looks like he’s the best player.”
There are plenty of reasons Suh would make sense for St. Louis. For one, the Rams have a defense-oriented coach in Steve Spagnuolo, who made his reputation with deep, talented defensive lines as defensive coordinator of the New York Giants.
For another, defensive tackle is a big area of need. Realistically, the Rams have one bona fide starter in Clifton Ryan and a rookie with some potential in Darell Scott. Former first-round pick Adam Carriker is on the injured reserve list, and the Rams have no way of knowing right now whether he’ll be a factor in 2010 and beyond.
But at this point the Rams aren’t locked into anything. The only sure thing is that no matter what happens over the final two weekends of the season, they’ll have a top five pick for the third year in a row.
“It stinks, to be honest,” Devaney said. “It stinks at a lot of levels. It just tells you that you had a crappy year. But it is what it is. We’ve got to make the best decision. Whether we stay there (and don’t trade down). Whether we move back. There’s a lot to work though before we get to that point.”
Devaney said the Rams are open to all options, including a trade down.
“Everything’s on the table,” he said.
The Rams had their entire scouting department in last week — the first time they’ve been together as a group since training camp.
“They’ve been out on the road, visiting schools, going to games, collecting all the information (on draft prospects), doing their evaluations,” Devaney said.
The Rams try to get three “in-person” looks at draft prospects before the end of the college season. For example, say there’s a prospect in the Pacific-10 Conference. The Rams’ area scout assigned to the West will scout the player. Then a scout assigned to another region — say, the team’s South-area scout — does a “cross-check” evaluation.
“And then we have national guys, either Lawrence McCutcheon or Tony Softli, who kind of split the country in half,” Devaney said. “Either Tony will go in and see the guy for the third time, or McCutcheon will go and see the guy for the third time.”
These evaluations involve separate campus visits. NFL scouts aren’t allowed to talk to the players on these trips, but they watch tape, watch practice and talk to assistant coaches, trainers, academic advisers, etc., to get as much information and background as possible.
Devaney doesn’t have his scouts attend many college games live. Occasionally they will do so to watch a quarterback, or a particular matchup — such as a marquee wide receiver against an elite cornerback. But if Southern Cal is playing Texas, there might be 20 pro prospects on the field. It’s impossible to scout such a game live.
During last week’s scouting department meetings, the Rams didn’t get into much nuts-and-bolts evaluations of a player. Some players who are obvious character risks were removed from consideration.
But much of the week was spent putting together what Devaney called a “road map” of what needs to be done from now until the draft.
“And that’s the college all-star games,” Devaney said. “The combine. We start setting up interview lists — the obvious guys that we know are going to be high-rated guys, who we’re going to want to spend time with.”
There may be players with medical issues or relatively minor character issues that need further investigation. “We’ll talk about a player and say, ’OK, here’s what we’ve got to find out in the (offseason),” Devaney said.
Once the regular season is over, the coaching staff becomes involved in the process.
“As soon as this season is over, we’ll do a team evaluation,” Devaney said. “The coaches and the pro scouts will get together and go over our roster — every player on our roster. They’ll go over the strong points, weak points. Where do they fit? Do they have a future here? Can we win with them?”
And once that evaluation is over, the Rams have their basic blueprint of team needs in the draft and free agency.