3 players LA Rams will regret leaving off the 53-man roster in 2024

It is over. The LA Rams roster competition that held plenty of spirited and heated competition to make the team and continue the journey into the 2024 NFL season is over. Now the attention of fans will pivot from the players vying to make the roster, to the players who had their names penned into the initial 53-man roster almost as soon as OTAs began.

This is the effect of 'out of sight, out of mind,' in its purest form. The top tier of players, those who will start and play key rotational roles this season, never suited up for the preseason. And so many teams did give their starters a chance to knock off the rust in true preseason competition. In the preseason games, the Rams pitted the bottom half of the roster against the middle to upper tiers of opposing teams. And yet, the Rams were very competitive. In fact, this was the first preseason in which the Rams finished over .500 in preseason in HC Sean McVay's tenure.

Still, this was a deep roster, incredibly deep as we discovered that players who did not earn a spot on this roster were quickly gobbled up by other teams. No disrespect, but it was obvious that castaways from this team were going to be quite popular elsewhere. The Rams, like all NFL teams, had quite a conundrum at squeezing 60 or more NFL-caliber talented players into 53 roster slots. The results were a bit creative.

The team placed two players on injured reserve with designation to return in DT Larrell Murchison and OT KT Leveston. The team retained TE Tyler Higbee on the PUP/IR list. Of course, the team has two players on two-game suspensions LT Alaric Jackson and QB Jimmy Garoppolo. And then four players on IR are out for the season DB Derion Kendrick, OT Conor McDermott, rookie DE Anthony Goodlaw, and DB Tre Tomlinson.

All total, nine players above and beyond the team's original 53-man roster and 16-man practice squad remain with the team. Whether intentional or just random results of injuries, the team has done an excellent job of identifying and retaining a lot of talented players. But some very good players slipped through the team's fingers, and it's time to recap who those players were. Such as: