Cutdown to 55

Sigh... last night's RamView recap is still nowhere close to done, I haven't had time to even put up a quickie recap of last night's scrub-fest, and the Rams are already cutting people. You're going to have to trust me on who I say I predicted would get cut. It'll all be in a RamView that probably comes out after the Rams have made all of their cuts. This still isn't the worst Rams blog on the web for nothing.







Rams' cuts so far:
Note: the cutdown is only to 55 because Isaiah Pead and Jo-Lonn Dunbar are suspended. Somebody has to get cut after week 1 and after week 4 when each is eligible again.

Emory Blake
Mason Brodine
Sammy Brown
Austin Davis
Cody Davis
Garrett Goebel
Rashard Hall
Josh Hull
Nick Johnson
Philip Lutzenkirchen
Andre Martin
Ty Nsekhe
Zach Potter
Eric Stevens
Drew Thomas
Justin Veltung
R.J. Washington
Darren Woodard
D.J. Young

Eric Stevens is now being reported as having been released, so I'm going to assume the last move involves Sean Hooey in some way and claim a 15-for-20 mark. Reviewing what I got wrong:

At LB, the Rams went with youth over experience, cutting veteran middle linebacker Josh Hull and keeping undrafted rookie free agent Jonathan Stewart. Stewart's one of five UDFA's to make the final 55. Amazingly, three of them are linebackers, i.e. all the depth at that position. Much rawer than I'd ever have expected the Rams to go, even if it's just for a month till Jo-Lonn Dunbar gets back.

At safety, the Rams went with experience and a month-long calf injury over youth, apparently letting Matt Giordano make the club from the tub over Cody Davis. The move is fairly baffling to me; it's not like Giordano is this proven commodity who's respected league-wide and is going to be a major difference-maker the second he hits the field. We'll see, but I think they'll be lucky to get Davis through waivers and onto the practice squad. And I doubt he'll last real long there if he gets there.

At tight end, the Rams kept Mike McNeill, more of a receiver and playmaker, over Zach Potter, more of a blocking TE. I thought Potter the better blocker, and didn't really like McNeill's work on special teams, but I saw a lot less of the two than the coaches did.

Apparently happy enough with what they have on kick and punt returns without him, the Rams let Justin Veltung go in favor of Chase Reynolds. Though he hasn't stood out this preseason, Reynolds has been a solid contributor in special teams in the past, and there's even some suggestion that he'll return kicks opening day. I actually thought Veltung could have handled that role, but it looks like that'll be Benny Cunningham's job right now.

The Austin Davis era hit a significant speed bump when he was released Friday, with the seeming intent of getting him onto the practice squad. His spot seems to have been re-allocated toward keeping an extra offensive lineman. The Rams have 10 on the roster at the moment, including Brandon Washington, who rode the practice squad all last season.

New projected practice squad: Austin Davis, Cody Davis, Justin Veltung, Emory Blake, Mason Brodine, R.J. Washington, Eric Stevens and Woodard, depending on his hamstring injury

Undrafted rookie free agents projected to make the main roster: Benny Cunningham, Gerald Rivers, Ray Ray Armstrong, Daren Bates and Jonathan Stewart, an impressive haul the Rams didn't have to expend a single draft pick on. And for the second straight year, a player RamView originally gave a 5% chance of making the team made the final roster out of camp, so maybe I should quit doing that.

For the record, I put Cunningham's odds at 55%, Rivers' at 5% with an August 1st upgrade to 35%, Armstrong at 10% with an upgrade to 75%, Bates at 20% and Stewart at 40% with a downgrade to 20%. Sigh. My best pre-camp odds were on Cody Davis at 60%.

I believe coach Fisher would call my poor performance a learning opportunity.

-$-