Cutting ex-LA Rams players is an alarmingly upward trend in the NFL

Over the past several years, the LA Rams have lost key contributors to the NFL Free Agency to NFL who believed that those players would replicate their Rams production on their roster, in their scheme, on their football field. Unfortunately, many of those past free agency defectors have struggled to replicate their results on other rosters.

Now, those other teams who had loaded up on former LA Rams players are tossing them back, releasing them unceremoniously, to reclaim salary cap dollars that they feel are better spent elsewhere. While one or two players being released is simply the NFL earning its ‘Not For Long’ moniker, 2022 has been a bit of a tsunami for Rams players getting tossed back into the NFL Free Agency market.

We’ve talked about some players on a one-by-one basis. In those discussions, it seems as though the Rams should consider signing those former players in the expectation that the Rams could help them return to their former status of NFL proficiency. But let’s look at this a bit more holistically. The following players have been released recently:

ILB Cory Littleton by the Las Vegas Raiders
OLB Dante Fowler Jr. by the Atlanta Falcons
Offensive guard Rodger Saffold by the Tennessee Titans (signed by Buffalo Bills)
PK Greg Zuerlein by the Dallas Cowboys
DE Morgan Fox by the Carolina Panthers

Even though their respective histories with other teams have varying durations and results, those teams felt it necessary to outright release those players due to the drain on team finances. Overreaction? Too few data points to draw a  meaningful conclusion? Perhaps.

But the pattern is unmistakable. What players can do on the LA Rams roster is not easily replicated on the rosters of other teams. And that is becoming more and more obvious as the number of former Rams players being released grows.