4 LA Rams rookies entering 2023 NFL season with a chip on their shoulder

There are many reasons to motivate an NFL player, but what will motivate the LA Rams players in a 2023 NFL season filled with uncertainty? While there is plenty of bravado in the offseason, the realistic expectations for a Rams roster that is composed primarily of rookies right now cannot be as high as that of previous seasons.

Goals? Of course. The goal for each and every NFL season should be to win the upcoming NFL Champiohship Game. But if the Rams fall short of that goal in the 2023 NFL season, nobody will be fired, no coach's job is in peril, nobody is sitting on a hot seat or competing on the bubble (well, not until the Rams roster must be pared down to 53 players.

And so, for the first time since the LA Rams hired Sean McVay to be the head coach of the LA Rams, this team is likely to be heavily dependent upon rookies, or at the very least, young and inexperienced players, to make up the roster, and perhaps a significant portion of the Rams starters as well. That's very new for the Rams, simply because the team has seldom handed out significant playing time to first-year players.

Money matters to Rams roster

But the finances of the 2023 NFL season have forced these Rams to adapt a new strategy. It's not that the Rams want to play young players. Rather, this team needs to optimize inexpensive players this season, and it is that fact that has rendered the Rams roster a land of promise for young NFL talent to make their mark and embark on a full NFL career.

While blessed for the opportunity, it has not exactly been a yellow-brick road leading to the magical Land of Oz for the Rams young arrivals. In many cases, thanks to the spot where the LA Rams selected them in the course of the 2023 NFL Draft, they had to sit patiently while less talented rookies were selected. And with each selection made that did not result in their arrival to the NFL, their salary fell a little bit more, to the point where the Rams could afford to add them to their salary.

Table of Contents:

1. Player I: QB Stetson Bennett
2. Player II: Edge Byron Young
3. Player III: DB Tre Tomlinson
4. Player IV: RB Zach Evans

That all stirs the pot a bit for young men, adding another log of incentive to the raging fires of competitiveness already burning in their souls. So who might be experiencing an extra jolt of falling too far in the 2023 NFL Draft? Here are four rookies who have every right to enter the 2023 NFL season on the LA Rams roster with a chip on their shoulder: