The Rams made one external roster move this week. It just wasn’t at wide receiver.
After placing Davante Adams on injured reserve with a hamstring injury that will require a cleanup procedure, the Rams signed kicker Brandon McManus. But when Sean McVay was asked whether the team had looked outside the organization for receiver help, his answer was direct: it had not.
That leaves the Rams leaning on the players already in the building while Adams is expected to miss 6-10 weeks with a ruptured semitendinosus. The timing matters. Adams is out for a stretch long enough to affect more than one game, but the Rams have chosen not to respond with an outside addition at the position that just lost one of its veteran targets.
McVay said the team has “some depth on our roster,” and that depth now becomes the center of the conversation. The Rams’ 53-man roster includes Konata Mumpfield, Jordan Whittington, Tutu Atwell, Alex Bachman and C.J. Daniels Jr., with Brennan Presley on the practice squad. Matthew Stafford pointed specifically to Mumpfield when discussing what Adams’ absence could mean for the offense, saying that with Adams going down, “everyone will get more opportunities.”
That is the Rams’ public answer for now: opportunities for the receivers already on hand, and a next-man-up approach as they move into Week 7 against the Raiders.
The contrast is hard to miss. At kicker, the Rams acted quickly, signing McManus after a workout on Tuesday to fill the vacancy created by Blake Grupe’s injury. At receiver, they have stayed internal despite Adams’ absence and the length of his recovery. The roster move at one spot and the restraint at another make the team’s current thinking plain enough: the Rams are reinforcing where they can, but not shopping for a wideout.
That puts more weight on the receivers who remain. McVay and Stafford have both framed the response around competition and execution, with Stafford saying the team needs to “go compete every single day” so that when Sunday arrives, they can be proud of how they played and how they handled their business. For the Rams, the question now is not whether Adams’ injury matters — it clearly does — but whether the players already on the roster can absorb the snaps, targets and responsibilities that come with his absence.
The Rams are also dealing with another injury loss on the defensive side, with nose tackle Poona Ford placed on injured reserve after a ruptured triceps that ends his season. That adds another layer to a week in which the Rams have had to adjust at multiple spots, even as they insist the answer at receiver is already in the room.
For now, that is the plan: no external receiver search, a new kicker in place, and a Week 7 test that will show how far the Rams’ next-man-up message can carry them without Adams.