Kinchen Cut to Clear Spot for Henley : Rams: Receiver admits he has had injury problems, but says release was due in part to his spiritual beliefs.

Wide receiver Todd Kinchen, suggesting that his Christian philosophy might have damaged his standing with the Rams, was released Tuesday to make room for cornerback Darryl Henley, who has been indicted for cocaine possession and distribution.

To avoid paying an additional week’s salary, the Rams had to cut Kinchen, who was due to earn $375,000 this season, by 1 p.m. Tuesday, although Henley had yet to sign a contract.

Strangely enough, the Rams’ training staff had cleared Kinchen earlier Tuesday to begin practicing today.

“This isn’t a good guy, bad guy thing because we don’t even know if Darryl is guilty and I don’t want to talk about that,” Kinchen said. “But it’s just the way society is going as a whole. Society is losing the good morals, the clean-living lifestyle and our boundaries are getting wider and wider.”

The Rams say they released Kinchen because they no longer could depend on him being healthy and ready to play. Kinchen does not disagree, but he wonders if his Christian beliefs made him appear to the team less tough, less committed and less willing to come back quickly from his injuries.

“Obviously they feel they can’t continue to invest in somebody who is not producing,” Kinchen said. “But I find the timing surprising. The injury report had me down for a full go to practice, but still they released me.

“Being a Christian is what my life is all about and football is a secondary thing. That’s how I’m able to keep it in focus. A lot of people here have said that’s part of my problem. They haven’t liked the fact that off the field I don’t come across being a lover of football.”

The Rams wondered at times about Kinchen’s life off the field, but only because he had so much trouble making it to meetings on time. A club official said he was fined more than $20,000 his rookie season for being late.

“I have a life off the football field,” Kinchen said. “I think people have kind of misread that about me being a player, that I haven’t loved football as much as I really do. It’s kind of a shame people don’t know me better than that. I think Coach (Chuck) Knox is the exception, but people haven’t seen my football personality enough.

“They might have thought I wasn’t coming back from the injuries because of that, but that’s crazy. I wasn’t 100% last year, and I was out there.”

Knox said he was aware of Kinchen’s religious convictions, but added that Kinchen never suggested he was being treated differently. Knox said Kinchen’s religious convictions had no influence whatsoever in the team’s decision not to keep him.

“We had a numbers situation,” Knox said. “While we think he’s an outstanding talent, we had a hard time keeping him on the field.”

Kinchen, a third-round pick in 1992, tied an NFL record his rookie season returning two punts for a touchdown in a game. Pegged to be the team’s No. 3 receiver a year ago, he reported to mini-camp complaining about a knee he had injured in an off-season pickup basketball game.

Team physicians discovered a cracked bone in his knee and performed surgery.

“This FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) team needed another player for a basketball game,” Kinchen said. “I’ve replayed that game over and over in my mind, every shot, every jump and I don’t remember hurting myself. I just remember being sore.”

That basketball game, however, began his downfall with the Rams. Although surgery repaired his knee, he returned before he was ready to play, and after catching eight passes in five games, he tore a ligament in his other knee.

He returned this summer, practiced on a limited basis in training camp, and appeared to recover fully near the end of the exhibition season.

And then he pulled a hamstring.

“Obviously they don’t think I’m worth the patience of waiting one or two games,” Kinchen said. “I’ll go home tonight and think what the hell were the coaches thinking today. Of all people--I’m a very good talent. I got a (sore) hamstring, but I’ll be ready next week. What the hell were they thinking?

“I’ll think about that briefly and then I will throw it out the window because there are things in life you can not understand.”

When healthy, Kinchen flashed the speed and receiving ability to make him a prime contributor. But can he stay healthy?

“I’ve had a dark cloud overhead, but I’ve been blessed, too,” Kinchen said. “You can’t allow something like this to drag you down. There are much worse things going on; someone probably just died from hunger while we’re sitting here talking. That’s a tragedy.”

If a team puts in a claim for Kinchen today, they will have to pick up his $375,000 salary. More likely he will clear waivers, and have to start trying out for teams, while waiting for injuries to take their toll.

“I’ll start at the bottom again, and when I get on a team they’ll see I’m a good player,” Kinchen said. “I’m young, my knee ordeal is over and I know I’m a good player.

“What happened today is a disappointment because of the time, the money and the patience the coaches have put into me. It’s a disappointment because I wasn’t able to be more dependable than I was.

“But if I never play in the NFL again, I would have still set an NFL record, and that’s something most people never do. I have that, and if I never play again, I know this: I was a good receiver. It’s just God’s will.”