When entering Inglewood, the driver is greeted with a sign welcoming him/her to “The City of Champions.” Some truth exists within the bold proclamation, but such glories are at present in Inglewood’s past: specifically, the trophy case of this would-be Titletown holds six titles the “Los Angeles” Lakers won there before the franchise jumped ship along with the then title-less Los Angeles Kings just in time for Shaq ‘n’ Kobe to assert their dominance over the NBA from the Staples Center.

Word, Todd McShay. LARams.net is digging on our team’s fourth-round selection Pharoh Cooper, too.

As the dust settles on the 2016 NFL Draft and subsequent immediate undrafted free-agent signings, so flow the ponderings about each franchise’s war-room performance. ESPN.com go-to football guy Todd McShay, in one of a zillion listicles posted since draft day, happily pronounced Cooper to be the Los Angeles Rams’ best draft pick overall.

Commented ESPN.com’s Rams beat writer Nick Wagoner thereafter:

It begins.

To no one’s surprise, the Los Angeles Rams drafted Jared Goff at no. 1 overall in the 2015 NFL draft, making the Cal Golden Bears standout the first ever pick by the 2.0 version of the team. In pursuing what GM Les Snead and coach Jeff Fisher hope – after all, the jobs of both may be on the line – is the elusive star-level QB the franchise has lacked since the days of Marc Bulger.

Immediate reaction was mostly positive; CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco was fairly representative of the hype in giving the Rams a mark of A-minus for NFL Draft day one, while his site reckons that with Todd Gurley in the lineup, Goff’s path to success will be that much easier. (Bit of a no-brainer there…)

Well now, this certainly changes things.

Les Snead, Jeff Fisher et al have apparently decided that the Los Angeles Rams will essentially forego the entire NFL draft after nabbing the first overall pick from the Tennessee Titans, thereby reducing the team’s entire draft “haul” to (presumably) Carson Wentz plus four selections in the fourth and sixth rounds – and incidentally made mincemeat of this sort of speculation.

Said Snead this morning:

“Our philosophy has always been to build through the draft. This trade is a reflection of that goal." - GM Les Snead pic.twitter.com/TuWjPkIv4S

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) April 14, 2016

It’s well past time to count down the days until the first first-round NFL draft pick by a Los Angeles Rams team since 1994, so today LARams.net’ll just get right to looking at potential future Rams, as culled from the innumerable-yet-growing thicket of mock drafts online.

Of course, we can’t be sure just how many of these projections are even close, given that approximately 0.00001% of would-be Nostradami, a “group” essentially limited to noted NFL insider Adam Schefter, figured Todd Gurley would be the Rams’ selection in round one of the 2015 draft.  

But anyway. Here are five not-unlikely possibilities for Rams fans to ponder.

Well, LARams.net supposes, as long as the HBO series “Hard Knocks” continued, the Rams were bound to be the focus at some point. Today, that eventuality was made reality, with officials from the team and the network announcing that the 2016 series will focus on the new/old team in Los Angeles.

Excerpts from the team’s official press release follow. Exclusive hot take(s) follow that.

At what point can we let the skepticism-unto-pessimism take root? After a week and a half of the 2015 free agency period, believing the now-Los Angeles Rams will turn around a dozen years’ worth of a cumulative .333 mark (okay, so technically at 64-127-1, they’re exactly one tie against San Francisco in 2012 better than .333) is approaching impossible.

While LARams.net can state that Les Snead’s bunch hasn’t been entirely slack during the past 10 days, the net loss thus far has outpaced the gains. The call from our perspective looks something like the following.

On the eve of NFL free agency officially opening, it’s time the annual round of that game called “Who Will Be the Rams Starting Quarterback?” Below, LARams.net lists nine eight possibilities for the team in 2016, arranged from least to most likely. Since this is written purely pragmatically, the optimist might want to stop reading somewhere in the middle – because the ultimate conclusion ain’t pretty.

•  Peyton Manning – Thank the football gods “The Sheriff” decided to retire before he decided to put his crippled body back onto the field. Getting the Rams back to Los Angeles is unadulterated awesomeness, and all, but what we don’t need is a reboot of 1977…

At the NFL’s veterans combine last month, Los Angeles Rams coach Jeff Fisher had some words of cautious optimism for Tre Mason after skimping on his playing time once Todd Gurley became a human highlight clip.

“Tre has got to have a great offseason program,” Fisher said at that time. “…We’re expecting, hoping, that everybody comes in. We drafted Tre for a reason. When you look at that position, when you’re talking about Todd and Tre and then Benny [Cunningham], I think that’s as good a group as you’ll find in the league, from a depth standpoint. … I think Tre realizes he has to put the commitment in, wherever he is, and have a great preseason.”

On a Super Tuesday on which we can also celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the USFL, LARams.net  reckons it's an appropriate time to rerun this piece, which was originally posted in October of last year. The point: If you must vote Republican, please don't vote for the guy who killed the most noble experiment in American professional sports...

Donald Trump has a commanding lead over his would-be competitors for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. This writer is an unabashed stat guy when enjoying two obsessions – football and electoral politics – so let’s crunch some numbers.

•  US census bureau statistics say that 23.1% of the population is under 18 and thus ineligible to vote. Of the estimated 318.9 million, this leaves 222.9 potential voters.