The Los Angeles Rams’ roster turnover at outside linebacker from last year to this season is jarring. They don’t have a single edge rusher from last year’s initial 53-man roster on this year’s team. Leonard Floyd, Terrell Lewis, Justin Hollins and all the other edge rushers are gone.
Yes, Michael Hoecht is back on the team but this time last year, he was a defensive tackle.
Buy Rams TicketsIt’s undoubtedly the weakest and most concerning position group on the roster, but it doesn’t seem like any help is on the horizon. Rams GM Les Snead told reporters Wednesday that while the Rams are in the market for an outside linebacker, they don’t seem to love anyone who’s still available.
“I could simply say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll definitely take a really good, experienced outside linebacker,’ right? You’d probably always be in the market for that,” Snead said. “Now, their availability, I bet is a lot – our wishes for that is greater than their availability usually this time of year, but that’d be an interesting analytics study. If we take all the OLBs who are on the street today and then see how they do from this point forward. I think you get what I’m saying, but we would, again, always take an experienced outside linebacker who can affect the game, either on the line of scrimmage in the run game or the passer.”
There’s no doubt the market at edge rusher has dried up, but the Rams had opportunities to add a veteran (or two). Jadeveon Clowney, for instance, just signed with the Ravens for $2.5 million. Justin Houston got $6 million from the Panthers this summer. The Rams had chances to bring in help, but they obviously didn’t feel the available players were worth their contracts.
The Rams could end up regretting their prudent approach at this important position. When Aaron Donald is getting triple-teamed and his impact is being felt less because the Rams don’t have anyone to draw attention away from him, it’s going to hurt the defense.
There’s still time for Los Angeles to add help – Melvin Ingram, Carlos Dunlap and Malik Reed are all available – but it doesn’t sound like that’s in the cards for this team.
