Rams regional scout Vito Gonella is constantly on the road during football season. He covers the entire west coast of the country, as far east as Utah and as west as Hawaii, evaluating college prospects for the Rams. It involves long stretches away from his home in San Diego, Calif., and days off are few and far between.

"You will miss birthdays and weddings and funerals and important events that happened during that football season that you're going to have to sacrifice," Gonella said. "So it does take a toll, but once again, it's one of those things where it's like, if you love it so much and you're so passionate about it, you will always battle through it."

Gonella has always possessed a deep passion for football player evaluation, and he's dedicated the entirety of his adult life to doing it at the highest level. In his 10 years with the Rams, Gonella has recommended numerous players that have become difference-makers for the team, including wide receiver Puka Nacua and safety Quentin Lake.

Gonella started as a scouting assistant/analyst for two years, then was promoted to West Coast area scout and now holds the title of regional scout after a recent promotion. Here's an inside look at Gonella's role with the Rams and some of his successful evaluations:

Responsibilities

The initial scouting grind starts in August and stretches all the way to Thanksgiving for Gonella. He must create extensive profiles for any draft-bound prospect from the 20 FBS programs in his jurisdiction, as well as any stragglers from FCS or Division II schools.

After a summer of familiarizing himself with the upcoming draft class from afar, Gonella has a good feel for who he'll be evaluating at each school. All his college visits are relatively the same, and after eight years on the job, he's settled into a routine.

Gonella starts each visit by obtaining character assessments on prospects through conversations with sources. He'll talk with coaches, trainers, pro liaisons, everyone who has perspective on the person behind the player, "even the janitor if you're able to grab him," Gonella said.

"What kind of person is he? What is his motivation? Does he love football? How smart is he? How good of a human being is he? Is he a model citizen? Does he fit our Rams culture, which is very high-character players?"

Those are the types of questions Gonella wants answered. From there, he'll head to practice in the afternoon, noting players' body types beyond just the measurables. Different aspects of a physique can tell him things about a players' training habits.

"You can kind of tell how hard their work ethic is if their body is all ripped up, good looking, then you know they've been hitting the weights and working extremely hard through their entire college career up to that point," Gonella said. "And then you get guys that have very sloppy bodies and you could probably tell a little bit that they have not been taking the weight room as serious."

As practice commences, he'll appraise habits, speed, athleticism, explosiveness and other physical traits compared to what he's seen on tape. Afterward, he's talking to the coaches again. He wants to know how players learn, if they can be coached hard, if they're a leader, how they are socially and details on their family life. If players have been through adversity, Gonella said he needs to know how they responded.

The Rams have "critical factors," that they look for in players' character and positional skills. The character traits are consistent across the board, and the football-centered attributes vary based on the player's position. Gonella focuses on unearthing those during his visits, but, above all, he's looking to discover if prospects are smart and unproblematic.

"(Intelligence) is probably on the top of my list," Gonella said. "If they can learn and how they learn and can they retain, and figuring out how fast they can pick (things) up is extremely important."

After all that, Gonella goes back to his hotel room, types up his findings and goes to sleep. At 5 a.m. the next morning, the whole process starts over again at a different school in the area, or else he starts driving to the next college on his route.

Gonella is typically on the road for 12-14 days at a time. Then, he leaves his car at the airport of whatever city he's in and catches a flight back to San Diego. Those two-to-three days at home aren't work-free, though, as Gonella is looking at tape or communicating his findings to the Rams' front office. Then, he flies back to his car and keeps going.

Gonella starts down south and works his way up the coast to Washington. From there, he goes east to Montana and loops all the way down to Arizona, stopping at any school with a relevant draft prospect. There's one lap in August during training camp and two more laps over the next three months. The amount of visits he makes to a school typically depends on the number of prospects they have coming out that year.

Gonella goes to games whenever there's one in his area, talking with coaches in a less structured setting, observing pre-game routines and watching prospects in-person.

In doing this, Gonella has developed friendships and professional relationships with sources at every school he visits. Building those bonds is among his most significant tasks, especially considering the Rams' emphasis on a connected culture.

"I have a lot of really, really strong, close friendships and relationships with these sources in these schools where I can really, really dig and figure out what is correct and what is incorrect," Gonella said.

Matching what he sees on tape to his sources' information is the next step toward finalizing his analyses. For example, if he's told that a player is tough, does that physicality and desire to be on the field show up on the film? And if he's told someone is smart, are they being utilized eclectically within the scheme?

In December, he refines reports and watches more tape. That's when he can go back to sources, confirming details to match the film to his character assessments. When the new year comes on Jan. 1, he presents his findings and suggestions to general manager Les Snead and the front office.

Gonella is back on the road for Pro Days in March, until the intensive draft prep starts in early April. May begins the summer evaluation process for the upcoming class, and the cycle starts all over again come training camp.

It's an exhaustive job that most don't fully understand the repercussions of, but it's Gonella's passion, and that's what keeps him going during those lonely nights in hotel rooms.

"I don't wake up in the morning and say, 'I have to do this.' I say, 'I get to do this,'" Gonella said. "I want to do this. This is what I love doing. And if you have that mindset all the way through, you'll continue and you'll be successful at it."

Successful Evaluations: Nacua and Lake

Nacua was to BYU what Deebo Samuel was to the 49ers in his prime, Gonella said. He played every receiver position, along with the occasional running back and wildcat quarterback snaps. That told Gonella that Nacua was smart enough to not just play, but excel in various spots, and his sources confirmed as much.

"I go talk to (my sources at BYU) and they're like, 'yeah, we can do whatever we want with him because he's really smart… this kid knows the offense inside and out,'" Gonella recalled. "So once again, the character is matching the tape, and that's not always the case."

Intelligence was, and still is, an area where Nacua excelled. Gonella already knew his family, having scouted his two older brothers at BYU, and Nacua's ball skills and tough running jumped off the screen.

"When he had the ball in his hands, he would always break tackles, it was never the first guy that would take him down, it was always the second, third or fourth," Gonella said. "So, I knew that this kid not only is extremely tough on the field, but when I went and talked to the sources about him, they raved how tough he was, so it also matches up."

He pushed for the Rams' front office to take a deeper look at Nacua, and everyone knows what happened from there. He's been everything Gonella had hoped for, and more.

Another current Ram that Gonella pushed for in the draft process was Lake.

When Lake was being recruited to UCLA, Gonella was a recruiting assistant there, so he already had a good base of information on him. He'd met Lake's father, Carnell Lake, who played 12 years in the NFL as a defensive back, and his mother.

He discovered that Lake had only gotten better with time. He was a captain and had never been late or in trouble. Gonella recalled writing that Lake was "the poster child" for a safety in terms of both character and football IQ.

"Quinten Lake was always the green dot guy… he was always extremely intelligent," Gonella said. "I mean, this kid was with his father watching NFL tape when his father was in the league, so his knowledge of the game was just so superior."

The Rams drafted him in the sixth round (216th overall) of the 2022 draft. Within three years, he ascended to a team captain who wore the green dot for most of last season, displaying both the leadership and intelligence that Gonella prized in him as a prospect.

Gonella said it's "extremely rewarding" to see players he's recommended become difference-makers for the team, but he's never satisfied.

"You're only as good as the last draft pick you had," Gonella said, and he wants to collect more each year.