St. Louis Rams stay 'thin' at wide receiver

St. Louis Rams stay 'thin' at wide receiver

BY JIM THOMAS
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/09/2009

Tuesday normally is the day during the regular season when teams make roster moves. But if the Rams are going to add a body to their thin wide receiver corps, it didn't happen Tuesday.

The Rams had five players in for tryouts at Rams Park, but no wide receivers. They did sign a wide receiver Tuesday — Nate Jones — but it was to their practice squad.

So all indications are the team will enter the regular season with only four wide receivers on the active roster: Donnie Avery, Keenan Burton, Laurent Robinson and Derek Stanley. Robinson is the "senior" member of that group, entering his third NFL season.

"In some regards, yeah, we're thin," coach Steve Spagnuolo said Monday. "We wanted to keep what we thought were the best 53. And it doesn't always lay out the way you did it way back in May."

Wide receiver Greg Lewis, who played in Philadelphia for several seasons with current Rams offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, was released Monday by New England. But the Rams aren't interested in Lewis at this time.

Lewis is a vested veteran, as is Ronald Curry, who was released Saturday by St. Louis. Vested veterans are players with four or more years in the NFL, and their contracts are guaranteed for the entire season if they're on the opening-day roster.

So in a season where the Rams figure to be snug against the salary cap, they may wait until after Sunday's season opener to add a wideout. The Rams also could be keeping an eye on Philadelphia, where the Eagles have seven wide receivers on their roster.

Once quarterback Michael Vick becomes eligible for the active roster after Week 2, one of those seven may go. Hank Baskett and Reggie Brown are possible roster casualties once Vick goes active.

Ok, that's one of the reasons why we're waiting. We don't want to have a guaranteed salary on the books, and so we'll wait till next week to make a move most likely. There's no way we'll stay at only four wideouts the whole year. Curry very well might be back with the Rams after all. Or it could be another Philly player, who knows? I'm sure Despags are doing the best for the team though. Nothing has shown me otherwise yet.

Wow, we've come a long way from Bruce, Holt, Hakim, Proehl, Horne and Thomas.

Kevin Curtis.

We have no choice but pick up another WR somewhere in the season. I am sorry, but I don't see us having 4 young receivers and not having at least 1 of them getting hurt and missing a game or two.

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Originally Posted by chucknbob

We have no choice but pick up another WR somewhere in the season. I am sorry, but I don't see us having 4 young receivers and not having at least 1 of them getting hurt and missing a game or two.

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There will be some moves made, but it looks like the Rams are content to wait. It's a gamble, but an offense built around Steven Jackson makes it less risky. The TE's could probably pick up some of the slack in a dire emergency as well.

I'll trust Spags, but it does make me a bit uneasy to start the season with only 4 receivers, and one of them coming back from a broken bone.

Dane Looker was cut by the Lions.