St. Louis Rams Closing Evaluations: What Grades Do the Linebackers Receive?
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
The Rams began the season with a duo of second-year former undrafted linebackers, Daren Bates and Ray Ray Armstrong, as their backups. While Bates established himself as a reliable contributor and possible future special teams captain, Armstrong gave us a clue as to why he went undrafted.
When pressed into a starting role in the preseason as James Laurinaitis and Jo-Lonn Dunbar were sidelined with injuries, Armstrong greatly underwhelmed and showed a lack of discipline, which he had previously shown during the early part of 2013. Those struggles carried over into the 2014 regular season and culminated with him receiving a costly 15-yard penalty against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 5. That was the last straw for Armstrong, and he was released the next day.
A similar situation which was much more surprising was the case of linebacker and special-teamer Marshall McFadden. The 28-year-old was elevated to the active roster in Week 8 and played in five games, making an immediate impact on special teams and collecting four special teams tackles during his time on the roster, which placed him near the top of the team’s leaderboard.
However, he took a holding penalty in the Rams’ Week 13 game against the San Diego Chargers which wiped out a would-be fourth-quarter Tavon Austin punt return touchdown. Head coach Jeff Fisher publicly criticized the call, saying that he intently reviewed the game film and couldn’t find any sign of McFadden committing the penalty. For some reason, though, McFadden still seemed to pay the price for the call, being released before the Rams’ Week 14 game. McFadden was subsequently signed to the practice squad and has since been signed to the offseason roster.
Linebackers Kevin Reddick and Denicos Allen also spent time on the practice squad this year, although neither player ever made it up to the active roster, with both being released in the early part of the season.