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Reboot, rebuild, or restock? Reviewing LA Rams roster and D depth chart

By Bret Stuter

Earnest Brown IV, Marquise Copeland, Elijah Garcia
Earnest Brown IV, Marquise Copeland, Elijah Garcia / Scott Taetsch/GettyImages
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LA Rams News Rams roster Rams Free Agency Les Snead, Matthew Stafford
Les Snead, Matthew Stafford / Kevin C. Cox/GettyImages

Forget semantics. Rams roster in long term revision

To understand the timing, it's important to see this not as a team's knee-jerk reaction to a 5-12 record in 2022. Rather, the team's constant turnover on the coaching staff changed the goalposts, and the Rams were acquiring the wrong players for the wrong needs. It was a rush job after winning Super Bowl LVI. The Rams roster and coaching staff were cannibalized once more, but the team had not the time to vet decisions that would seriously impact 2022.

The LA Rams roster is at 44 players. But if the Rams had their way, that might be as few as 42 players. I don't believe that the Rams front office or coaching staff made Miami Dolphins TE Hunter Long a priority acquisition. The Rams wanted to trade away DB Jalen Ramsey, and Long was the best player that the Rams could pry from the Dolphins to pair with a 2023 third-round draft pick. And with the team shedding both TE Jarred Pinkney and TE Roger Carter, Long is thrust into the offensive rotation simply by default. Will he pan out? Who's to say? The Rams need contributors, and the field right now is wide open across the roster.

Stay informed. LA Rams Free Agency tracker 2023: Who’s coming and going in Los Angeles?. dark

Rams roster will be filled with young inexpensive players

With 44 players currently under contract on the Rams roster for 2023, 23 - or more than half - are due to earn less than $1 million for the 2023 NFL season. Another 12, or 35 out of 44, will earn less than $2 million. That will not improve as the Rams enter the 2023 NFL Draft. When the LA Rams hit 90 players, the roster could be made up of 75-80 players who will be earning less than $2 million for the season.

I'm not here to argue for equitable salaries. Rather, the compensation illustrates how incredibly young and inexperienced this 2023 LA Rams roster projects to become. That not only means inconsistent play, but the team will not benefit from veteran leadership that it had relied upon in the recent past. All of these factor will contribute to a great deal more uncertainty over this team in the 2023 NFL season. But perhaps most of all, it will mean a lot of young players will get On-The-Job (OJT) training throughout the 2023 season.

So what of the team's depth chart? Let's take a look at that next:

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