St. Louis Rams Lose DE Chris Long for 8-10 Weeks
The St. Louis Rams have lost defensive end Chris Long, who had played in 97 straight games since the start of his NFL career in 2008, for the next 8-10 weeks as he recovers from surgery to repair an ankle injury suffered during the Rams’ season-opening loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Monday. He’ll be placed on the injured/reserve-designated for return list, which keeps him off the active roster for at least the next eight weeks.
In the meantime, Long will be replaced primarily by veteran William Hayes, a very solid veteran who has 12 sacks in 31 games since arriving in St. Louis in 2012. However, with Hayes still getting back to 100 percent following an expansive succession of offseason surgeries, the Rams will take advantage of a committee approach that will also utilize Eugene Sims and figures to include undrafted rookie Ethan Westbrooks, who starred in the preseason before being a healthy inactive in Week 1.
The Rams will need to make at least one roster move after the loss of Long. They have an open 53-man roster spot, which they could use to add a new ninth defensive lineman or a player at any other position on the field. They could do that by adding practice squad defensive tackle Matt Conrath, who spent the past two years on the 53-man roster, back to the active roster. That would require Conrath or Alex Carrington, who both worked a bit at defensive end during training camp, to be ready at that position in an emergency.
Obviously the move that a lot of people would like to see would be for the Rams to poach back defensive end Michael Sam off the Cowboys’ practice squad, though that seems unlikely due to the fact that they so throughly rid themselves of him following the preseason. The addition of Sam may be more of a story than head coach Jeff Fisher desires at the moment after such a disastrous opening week.
The Rams may also choose to add depth at another position such as linebacker, where they went short with five players but then searched extensively for veteran plug-ins during Week 1, or offensive line, where they are effectively short because of the injury to backup Barrett Jones and the injury proneness of starters Jake Long, Scott Wells, and especially Rodger Saffold, who endured a scare in the fourth quarter of the Vikings game.
If they choose to boost one of those areas, they could promote a practice squad player; guys like Kevin Reddick and Denicos Allen at linebacker or Brandon Washington and Mike Remmers on the line would be candidates. Regardless, they probably need to add a defensive end to the practice squad considering the way they are approaching Hayes’s recovery and the likely desire they’d have to keep Sims off the scout team. If that was the case, guys to consider would be Kourtnei Brown, who was released at the end of training camp, or Sammy Brown, a two-year developmental project who was let go at the cut to 75 as he repeatedly failed to get on the practice field due to injury.