LA Rams: Hello Corey Bojorquez, so long Kyle Markway

As we had reported yesterday, the LA Rams achieved their 80-man roster threshold by waiving just three players: DB Paris Ford, RB Raymond Calais (with a designation for Injured Reserve if he clears waivers), and QB Devlin Hodges. The Rams only needed three players, because they cleared two roster spots by assigning both punters, Corey Bojorquez and Johnny Hekker, to the team’s COVID-19/reserve list. Five roster spots needed to be cleared. Five roster spots were cleared.

The other side of the coin is that in order to restore either Bojorquez or Hekker to the LA Rams active roster, a subsequent spot would need to be cleared first. That happened today, per the team’s transactions page of therams.com website:

"“Activated P Corey Bojorquez from Reserve/COVID-19 list. Waived/No Recall TE Kyle Markway.”"

Okay, so now we need to unpack all of this.

The Rams are still fine-tuning their roster, even as the team joins 31 other NFL organizations in pruning their roster to the new 80 player limit. A year ago, due to COVID-19 regulations, 80 players were the starting point for the abbreviated. This year, NFL teams had the luxury of working with 10 additional players per team (320 total) before roster cuts. Half of that number was released last week, the other half is in the process of finalizing their release today.

Rams roster

Los Angeles Rams

First of all, restoring punter Corey Bojorquez is critical to the LA Rams’ final preseason game. When he and Johnny Hekker were quarantined, the LA Rams not only had to recruit placekicker Matt Gay into double duty, but the Rams had to call up their third-string placeholder for field goals.

Bojorquez returning for the final preseason game may actually have a bearing on the Rams’ decision for the starting punter. Even if the Rams remain committed to Hekker, a good outing by Bojorquez could attract enough interest for a trade to be made just prior to the final cuts to the 53-man roster limit. A very good outing could compel the LA Rams to pause and ponder which punter will serve as their starter in the 2021 NFL Season.

To make room, the LA Rams waived tight end Kyle Markway. He was facing a steep climb for a roster spot, to begin with after signing on late with the team. While he was likely signed on for training camp and preseason games, he never really showed much in the way of production. Due to the anonymity, he made our list of 5 Rams tumbling down depth charts during the preseason article published earlier this week, Two of those five players have now been released.

The Rams will now pivot and turn their attention towards their only road game and a final preseason game. While it’s quite likely that the Rams have a majority of their 53 players decided (after all, they sat 35 or so out of preseason games), this final game can still decide the fate of several players in heated competition.