There’s really only one Rams injury that matters

The Rams could overcome all of their injuries except for the losses of Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp

Despite it feeling like the Rams have suffered more injuries this year than a Bruce Lee movie, there’s probably only one that significantly impacts the team compared to what L.A. was supposed to be at the start of the season: Puka Nacua. And the Rams could have still even survived that if not for Cooper Kupp being the next receiver to go down with an injury.

Yes, the receivers room has reached a Patriots-level depletion of talent, but if you looked at the rest of L.A.’s roster, it’s not that much different or worse than the Rams most people predicted to be a playoff team a couple of weeks ago.

So is the difference between the Rams as “a playoff team” and “a team in need of a rebuild” really only as shallow as one second-year wide receiver? The Rams are 0-2, but they’re an “overtime loss to a good team on the road” 0-2.

This is mostly the Rams you expected. Admittedly, going from Puka and Kupp to Demarcus Robinson and Tyler Johnson does change things.

These starters are still starting

QB Matthew Stafford, RB Kyren Williams, TE Colby Parkinson (Tyler Higbee replacement admittedly), RT Rob Havenstein, RG Kevin Dotson, LT A.J. Jackson, WR3 Demarcus Robinson.

As far as others being replaced, it’s too early to say if Beaux Limmer and Logan Bruss are significantly worse than Jonah Jackson and Steve Avila. Sean McVay has coached around offensive line injuries before.

Defensively, the Rams have some talent limitations, but it is still the defense that the front office chose months ago, for the most part. These are all the defensive starters who remain starters going into Week 3:

DE Braden Fiske, DT Bobby Brown III, DT Kobie Turner, LB Christian Rozeboom, LB Troy Reeder, OLB Byron Young, OLB Jared Verse, CB Tre White, CB Quentin Lake, S Kamren Curl.

The only changes would be replacing Darious Williams with Cobie Durant, which happened over a month ago, and replacing John Johnson with Kam Kinchens, which essentially is just reverting back to the safeties that L.A. was hoping would start prior to signing Johnson.

So when you really boil it down, the Rams have nine of 11 starters on defense and seven of 11 starters on offense who they always expected to start. Of those six starters needing to be replaced, I would think it safe to assume that none of the backups would be significantly noticeable other than having to go from Puka Nacua to Demarcus Robinson as the team’s number one receiver.

Well, is there anything that the Rams can do to fix that aside from internal adjustments?

No team is going to give up after an 0-2 start, most of them won’t give up after an 0-4 start, so it would have to be a unique situation for any GM to trade a good starting wide receiver this week or next week and that’s really when the Rams need a receiver the most. Imagine if the Broncos lost this week and threw in the towel, would the Rams feel desperate enough to try and trade a sixth round pick for Courtland Sutton? He costs nothing financially and Denver’s not going to get a good draft pick for him in any deal, so he could be an example of a veteran receiver who begs the front office to trade him because he’s turning 30 next year and knows he won’t get to 1,000 yards with Bo Nix.

Aside from trying to convince other teams to give up starters in September, the Rams will need to rely on players who have never been number one or number two receivers in the NFL before. Maybe Kupp will come back in three weeks, maybe Puka will come back in six weeks, but those are the two injuries that will be felt the most until they return to full health.