Rams report, 11/29: Chris Long activated

ESPN

It's unknown how many snaps he's scheduled to get, but Chris Long will be active for tomorrow's game against the Oakland Raiders. Linebacker Marshall McFadden, of last week's phantom holding penalty fame, was released so the Rams could put Long back on the main roster.

In a move earlier this week, the Rams called up TE Justice Cunningham from the practice squad (giving them FIVE tight ends) and cut WR Damian Williams. Enough tight end injuries have piled up around the league that they were afraid of losing Cunningham to another team.

Might as well catch up with the ex-Rams-and-family updates while I'm at it:

* New England signed Matthew Slater to a two-year contract extension;
* Houston signed Thaddeus Lewis;
* Arizona signed Matt Mulligan;
* Cleveland signed Zac Diles;
* Dallas signed Robert Steeples to their practice squad;
* Tampa added Denicos Allen back to their practice squad, and released Quinton Pointer;
* Carolina waived Chris Ogbannaya;
* New Orleans waived Brian Leonard.

Latavius Murray is out for tomorrow's game for the Raiders due to a concussion. I think that greatly reduces the threat their running game will pose, but I've been wrong about this kind of thing before. The Rams are 6.5-point favorites and are favored straight-up by 94% of fans. I believe it's the first time they've been favored since the first two weeks of the season, and they split those two games.

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Six Rams named Hall of Fame semifinalists

The Pro Football Hall of Fame reduced the pool of candidates for the class of 2015 to 26 tonight, and nearly one-quarter of them are Rams.

The entire Greatest Show contingent, - Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Orlando Pace and Kurt Warner - all first-time nominees, advanced to the next round, along with past finalists Jerome Bettis and Kevin Greene. The semifinalist list also includes former Cardinals and Chargers head coach Don Coryell, one of the fathers of the Greatest Show offense. List of all 26 semifinalists  Bettis, Greene, Charles Haley, Marvin Harrison and Will Shields were top-ten votegetters last year and should be the main candidates for 2015 induction among the repeat finalists. Junior Seau is the biggest favorite for induction among this year's first-timers.

On tonight's NFL Network reveal show, voter Rick Gosselin suggested there could be only one first-timer getting in this year. I assume that first-timer would be Seau, creating a scenario where the entire Show gets shut out and starting a run on pitchforks and torches in the St. Louis area.

The class will be reduced to 15 on January 8th. Those 15 will be joined by senior committee nominee Mick Tingelhoff and contributor nominees Bill Polian and Ron Wolf. My sincere thanks to the contributor voters for getting Eddie DeBartolo and Paul Tagliabue the heck off the list.

The 2015 Hall of Fame induction class will be announced January 31st.

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Catching up: Rams transactions

The Rams have had to be quite busy on the NFL's transaction wire the past few weeks. I'm sure every decent Rams blog has already been all over those transactions. Here at the world's worst Rams blog, though, I'm still getting caught up. So, here's all the Rams' moves I could find reports for since the last transaction I reported, which was Ray Ray Armstrong getting cut:


Oct. 31 - Signed Case Keenum to practice squad.

              Re-signed Jemea Thomas to practice squad. He has bounced on and off
              the practice squad since being signed originally in September.

Oct. 30 - Placed Brian Quick on season-ending injured reserve.

Oct. 30 - Signed WR Damian Williams.

              Promoted Brandon Washington from practice squad.

Oct. 30 - Added T Steven Baker, WR Emory Blake, G Travis Bond and TE Justice
              Cunningham to the practice squad. Re-adding Blake is interesting, since he
              was believed to have gotten cut for missing a meeting. Austin Pettis was
              supposedly cut for missing that same meeting and remains persona non grata.               
              Cut Kadron Boone from the practice squad.

Oct. 29 - Placed Jake Long on season-ending injured reserve.

Oct. 29 - Cut Garrett Gilbert and Case Keenum from practice squad and
              promoted Korey Toomer from the practice squad to the main roster.


Oct. 28 - Traded next year's 4th- and 6th-round draft picks to Tampa for Mark Barron.

Oct. 28 - Carolina signed T Mike Remmers from the Rams' practice squad.

Oct. 25 - Placed Brandon McGee on season-ending injured reserve. 

Oct. 21 - Promoted LB Marshall McFadden from practice squad.
              They originally signed him on the 8th.

St. Louis Rams

Signed LB Korey Toomer, WR/KR Devon Wylie and WR Kadron Boone to practice squad.

Oct. 20 - Cut WRs Austin Pettis and Emory Blake (PS).

Oct. 7 - Cut Justin Veltung from practice squad.

The Rams' practice squad as of November 15:
Baker, Blake, Bond, Christian Bryant, Matt Conrath, Justice Cunningham, Keenum, Brad Smelley, Jamea Thomas and Wylie.

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Catching up: ex-Rams transactions

And recent transactions involving ex-Rams, some of which I may have missed the first time around:

Nov. 12 - New Orleans signed Brian Leonard.

NBC Sports

Nov. 11 - Cleveland signed Ray Agnew Jr. back to the main roster. They had waived him  back on October 20th.

Tampa released Denicos Allen (signed Nov. 3) from their practice squad. I don't have any record from any of three different sites when the Rams released him or when the Bucs signed him. The lack of a fully-accurate NFL transactions source in the age of the information superhighway continues to be truly baffling.   

Houston waived Zac Diles. He may have been signed on Oct. 29th.

Nov. 3 - Detroit cut Danny Gorrer. Gorrer was picked up the next day by the Ravens,
             re-uniting him with their secondary coach, Steve Spagnuolo.

Nov. 5 - Tampa signed Quinton Pointer to their practice squad.

             Carolina re-signed Chris Ogbonnaya after waiving him on the 3rd.
             They originally signed him Sept. 30.

Oct. 31 - Carolina signed Kevin Reddick to their practice squad. He had been waived
              on the 7th.

Oct. 29 - Jacksonville signed Matt Daniels to their practice squad.

AP

Oct. 21 - Dallas released Michael Sam from their practice squad.

Oct. 15 - Denver signed Gerald Rivers to their practice squad.

Oct. 11 - Buffalo placed Chris Williams on season-ending injured reserve.

Oct. 7 - Buffalo released Jamie Childers from their practice squad. They had signed him a week earlier.

Sept. 30 - Rokevious Watkins' league suspension was lifted. He remains unsigned.

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Rams injury report, 11/1

The Rams have so many injuries right now, the list gets its own post. The Rams were too banged up on Wednesday to even do a proper practice. They just did a walkthrough. Even in Steve Spagnuolo's injury-plagued regime I can't remember such a thing happening.

Questionable
* Aaron Donald, shoulder. The biggest injury to worry about since he's been the defense's best player this year. Was limited on Friday, which was his first practice of the week.
* Jo-Lonn Dunbar, toe
* Janoris Jenkins, knee. Injured against Seattle. Sat out the Kansas City game and has not practiced this week. I wouldn't count on him.
* Rodney McLeod, knee. Injured against Kansas City. Was limited Friday.

Probable
* Tim Barnes, shoulder
* Kenny Britt, hip
* Cody Davis, concussion. Injured against Kansas City. Has passed the league protocol.
* William Hayes, foot
* Trumaine Johnson, knee. Johnson will play against the 49ers, I assume as the starter.
* Lamarcus Joyner, hip
* Marcus Roberson, ankle
* Scott Wells, elbow. I'll start with the optimistic o-line news: there's a chance the Rams' line will be pretty intact Sunday.
* Rodger Saffold, shoulder. As for the pessimistic news, I want to start by giving the injury-plagued Saffold all the credit in the world for being willing to pay through pain. But it's widely believed he is going to need shoulder surgery after the season, assuming it holds up for another two months. In other words, the Raiders weren't crazy, just sloppy, when they signed him this spring and then said they weren't keeping him because he failed a physical. The Rams then pooh-poohed that and signed him to a big deal. More top dollar from this regime for damaged goods.


Out for season
* Jake Long, ACL. Like Bradford, Long re-tore the ACL that put him out last season, and the new injury was almost exactly ten months after the old injury. The Rams are being defended as not having rushed Long or Bradford back. Didn't an ACL use to be a one-year recovery? In any event, that'll do it for Long as a Ram. He's not a talent bust like Drew Bennett, he's an injury bust, but his signing rivals Bennett's as one of the worst free agent signings in the St. Louis era. Long is way too juicy a cap target to even think about bringing back for 2015, and he has an obvious replacement on hand in Robinson, so the Rams will let him go and not look back. Long would represent cheap veteran insurance for the second half of the 2015 season, and a lot of guys will be injured by then, so I expect he'll finish his rehab while with another team.
* Brian Quick, shoulder. When he went to the ground after his only catch Sunday, he separated his shoulder and tore his rotator cuff. Rotator cuff? St. Louis really is a baseball town. This is the injury that mainly tells us the football gods hate the Rams. By all appearances, Quick is on his way as a quality NFL receiver. This injury has the crappiest timing I can imagine. The WR corps I see right now needs beefing up if Quick can't be relied on 100% next year. Kenny Britt needs to start showing up, Brian Schottenheimer needs to figure out how the hell to get the ball to Tavon Austin and it's time for Stedman Bailey to flash that preseason form.


The Rams reportedly made 18 roster moves this week to adjust for all the injuries. I'm obviously behind on transactions anyway; that will also be getting its own post.

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