Ram Camp : Farmer, Grant Don’t Make the Cut
The Rams’ troubled passing game may need training wheels.
They cut their two most experienced receivers Tuesday, George Farmer and Otis Grant, and kept five others whose common trait is inexperience.
Only Henry Ellard, a third-year pro, has ever started a National Football League game. The other starter, Ron Brown, hasn’t had a complete training camp in his two seasons, and the three others, Chuck Scott, Michael Young and Michael Harper, are rookies.
With this kiddie korps, Coach John Robinson is trying to build a dynamic passing attack around a new quarterback, Dieter Brock, to complement the running of Eric Dickerson, who is AWOL.
Brown, who ran on the U.S. gold-medal winning 400-meter relay team in the 1984 Olympics, had arthroscopic knee surgery last month and is recovering slower than expected, but Robinson said he has not considered putting Brown on injured reserve.
“He’ll have to play his way through it,” Robinson said. “I’m confident about Ron Brown and Henry, but after that we obviously haven’t made the progress we’d like.”
Robinson said he decided to keep the young receivers to allow them every opportunity to live up to expectations. Scott is a second-round draft choice from Vanderbilt, Young a sixth-rounder from UCLA.
“To perpetuate where we’ve been (last season) would have been a mistake,” Robinson said. “I’ve got to do something to shake up where we are.”
Robinson added: “We’ll also look around the league for other (trade) possibilities. We could even bring back the two (Farmer and Grant) we let go.”
Others waived Tuesday to reduce the squad to this week’s NFL limit of 50 were tight end Chris Faulkner, cornerback Holbert Johnson, running back John Kamana, linebacker Jim Laughlin, center Joe Shearin and defensive end Hal Stephens. Nose tackle Alvin Wright was put on injured reserve with a neck problem.
Five more players must be taken off the roster by next Tuesday.
Farmer, a ninth-round draft choice from Southern University in 1980, spent two seasons on injured reserve and then started all 16 games in ’83. He has caught 64 passes in the NFL but only seven last season.
Grant, a fifth-round pick from Michigan State in ‘83, has caught 21 passes. He started three games as a rookie but none since.