Rams make bold trade for young QB in new mock draft

The Los Angeles Rams are an organization known for thinking outside the box, and ESPN's Bill Barnwell suggested, perhaps, one of the strangest draft-day trades the team could pull off in 2026. In his newest all-trades mock draft, Barnwell posited that the Rams could trade the No. 13 to the Minnesota Vikings for 2024 first-round quarterback J.

J. McCarthy, the No. 18 pick and the No.

97 pick in the 2026 draft. The reasons are simple: The Rams don't have a true plan at quarterback in a post-Matthew Stafford era and general manager Les Snead likely would only trade slightly back or completely out of the first round. Meanwhile, the Vikings seem out on McCarthy as a franchise quarterback in their system and may just want to offload him for anything.

At the right price, though, taking a flyer on McCarthy would make sense. The Vikings are unlikely to move forward with the 2024 ninth overall pick as their quarterback of the future, having signed Kyler Murray to take over as their starter in 2026 before deciding on McCarthy's fifth-year option after the season. Getting something for the 23-year-old quarterback would make sense if the organization has decided it is going to be heading in a different direction.