Don’t look now, LA Rams, but it’s Coleman Shelton season

The LA Rams have gone with Austin Corbett as their starting offensive center and then flipped to Brian Allen almost instantly after the pads went on. All the while, the hope to finally see backup Coleman Shelton get his shot to start as the Rams offensive center had to be placed on the backburner once more.

It’s not as though I’m the president of the Coleman Shelton fan club or anything. But I was there when he played for the University of Washington Huskies and recognized his NFL potential in that dominant style of play at the college level. As such, I had the good fortune to project this young man into a role with potential NFL teams.

One such team that he seemed to be a natural fit for was the LA Rams.

"‘Since Coleman Shelton is a Los Angeles native, he would be a natural addition (to) the team. His height and weight place him in the right range to replace current starter John Sullivan when the time comes. For now, he is an upgrade to the Rams’ depth and gives Los Angeles answers for the future as well.’ – Bret Stuter, The Husky Haul"

Of course, that was some time ago. He originally signed on after the 2018 NFL Draft with the San Francisco 49ers. From there he made the rounds with the Tenessee Titans and the Arizona Cardinals. The Cardinals signed him to their practice squad, which is where the LA Rams found him in 2019.

Give me a break

With numerous injuries to the team’s offensive linemen, the Rams signed him off the Cardinals practice squad in 2019. He has since been on the LA Rams roster but has languished in anonymity in the LA Rams depth chart.

The problem has not been the fact that Shelton just doesn’t hold up to the competition. It was quite clear that the 2020 NFL season was so chaotic, that the Rams coaching staff simply reset any starters from their 2019 roster as starters for 2020, and rounded out the roster with young players on an as-needed basis.

When the team regrouped for the 2021 NFL season, they did so with new offensive line coach Kevin Carberry. That led to the team presuming a starting offensive line of Andrew Whitworth, David Edwards, Austin Corbett, Bobby Evans, and Rob Havenstein. That all fell apart when the pads went on, but crushed any opportunity for Coleman Shelton to earn a role on the starting offensive line.