5 Rams players who are on the roster bubble after NFL Draft

IV: RB Ronnie Rivers

The LA Rams tried to get some consistency out of the running back room in 2023. But if RB Kyren Williams was not lined up behind QB Matthew Stafford, the team seemed to sputter whenever the ground game was called upon. While I do believe that the team gives up too early with bigger running backs like RB Malcolm Brown, Sony Michel, and Royce Freeman, the team is never willing to keep them on the roster to attain any level of consistency.

Until the draft, the team's running back room consisted of RB Kyren Williams, Ronnie Rivers, and second year RB Zach Evans. The team needed to invest in a running back. But when the team drafted Michigan running back Blake Corum with the 83rd overall pick of the draft, the team was drafting far more than a backup running back to sit on the bench and wait for an opportunity to close out a game with a handful of carries.

The offense just upgraded the running back room, pivoting from a featured RB offense to a 1-2 punch of platooning similar but different runners to add a significant upgrade to the team's ground assault.

While Williams is an exceptionally gifted runner, the team knows that having a running back healthy for the NFL Playoffs means managing his workload throughout the season. But the coaching staff knows that pulling Williams out of a game to manage his workload derails any momentum that the team has made. And without a threat of a receiving option, the defense just loads up the box and shuts down any running plays.

Blake Corum is a 5-foot-8 213-pound thunderball whose low center of gravity and muscular strides are almost impossible to stop on short yardage downs, even those short-yardage red zone offensive plays where the team needs to hang a touchdown on the scoreboard. Corum put up 45 touchdowns for the Michigan Wolverines in the past two seasons. And ask anyone who followed Michigan, he earned every one.

As much as I cheer for RB Ronnie Rivers, he cannot compete with that proficiency. And don't look for Corum to ease up in training camp. Corum was the bread and butter of the Michigan offense. The Rams see him adding that to this offense.

Second year RB Zach Evans is cut from a different cord of wood. If he stalls out this year, he could be at risk in the future. But for now, the small RB role is super-saturated on this roster, and I see Rivers as the odd-man out.