6, er 5 LA Rams players on the bubble after the draft

The LA Rams wasted no time getting right to it in the 2022 NFL Draft. After waiting for 103 selections to be made by 31 other NFL teams, the LA Rams claimed eight of the next 159 rookies prospects to come off the board, a rate that is slightly better than five percent of the number of total rookies selected.

The NFL allows teams to inflate their rosters, from the combined limit of 53 active-roster players and 14 practice squad members, up to a 90-man temporary limit that allows teams to vet, train, test, and assess all of the new faces alongside known veterans.

While not a perfect system, it is one that places all 32 NFL teams on a somewhat level playing field. And because it has been the way that the NFL has indoctrinated rookies into the world of professional football for years, it has allowed teams to smooth the edges of that transition.

But much like the game of shuffleboard, sliding new faces into the roster at one end can oftentimes mean losing veteran players out the other end of the roster. Rookies are new, unknown, and perhaps have significant potential. Veterans, particularly those of multiple years on an NFL team’s roster, who have not shown growth and development, are now at risk of losing their playing time or, worse yet, their spot on the team’s roster.

It’s the way of the NFL. Competition begins the moment a player is signed to a contract. In 2021, inside linebacker Micah Kiser and wide receiver Trishton Jackson were two players who made the LA Rams’ 2020 53-man active roster. But after training camp, both were released. Jackson would go on to sign on the Minnesota Vikings practice squad. Kiser would sign to the LA Rams practice squad before being claimed by the Denver Broncos during the season.

So which players are at risk of being traded, waived, or diminished in roles this year? We had six originally named, but the LA Rams have already released one, so now we are down to five.