John Johnson III suffered a shoulder injury in the Rams' Week 2 loss to the Cardinals. He was expected to be sidelined for four to six weeks, but he remained on injured reserve for the past 11 weeks.
It's a similar story with Troy Reeder, who was placed on IR in Week 8 with a hamstring injury and has been out since.
Both players have missed a lot more time than originally expected, but that's not because their recovery is taking longer than expected. That forced the Rams to take their time with both players.
Teams can only designate eight players to return from injured reserve, and the Rams have already used seven of those spots, leaving them with only one left. Sean McVay said Monday that they are waiting to use their final activation if there is an injury at safety or tight end in the last five weeks, although both players are ready to return.
“It's interesting because we still have this one spot left and it's unique that with the number of slots we have, we can use that for IR return,” McVay said. “Both of these guys could be physically ready and both would make our team get better and better. The unique thing that Les (Snead) and I and some of the defensive coaches talked about earlier is that if you get injured in one of these positions, it might make it a little easier or give you some clarity, OK, if we had something in safety we JJ back. If we had something at inside linebacker, we'd get Troy back. These are ongoing discussions, but we are still working on them at the moment. We would like the opportunity to bring both back. It's a difficult situation. Nobody is responsible for this but us. We will proceed accordingly, but I don't have a clear answer for you. They could both be available, but we only have one of those guys that we could actually bring back.”
Johnson is widely viewed as the better player, but the Rams have also found a safety rotation that has worked in recent weeks. They lack depth at center back behind Christian Rozeboom and Omar Speights, but Reeder likely wouldn't displace either player in the starting lineup if activated.
The only way to get both players back is to make the playoffs. Teams will receive two additional return spots in the postseason, which would allow the Rams to activate one player now and two more in the playoffs.
