It’s been a shocking year for the Los Angeles Rams, limping to a 4-9 record through 13 games. The team itself has also made some surprising roster decisions amid this tough season. After waiving Terrell Burgess, Darrell Henderson Jr. and Justin Hollins earlier this year, the Rams have now waived Terrell Lewis, too.
They cut him on Thursday, allowing him to hit the waiver wire and be claimed by another team. Lewis was a third-round pick in 2020 but has had very little production since then, recording just six sacks in nearly three full seasons.
Raheem Morris spoke to reporters Friday and explained the decision, saying it was mostly about players such as Michael Hoecht, Keir Thomas and Daniel Hardy getting more opportunities – and taking advantage of them.
“As you guys have seen, Mike Hoecht the last couple of weeks getting acclimated to that position, we’ve been able to see Keir Thomas get activated and then last week our young rook came back up off the injury stuff and was able to play for us. Probably this week, (Lewis) wouldn’t have been active and what Sean says, he really means. He’s people first so in order to give Terrell the best chance to get back on the grass, we decided to part ways and let him move on and have an opportunity somewhere else where it’s probably going to be more fruitful for him. These young guys are coming in and playing, they’ve done some really good things the last couple of weeks and in order not to have a disgruntled worker, Sean really means what he says and people first, decided to let him go, give him an opportunity to play somewhere else and move on.”
Lewis has dealt with injuries throughout his young career already, which was a concern for him coming out of Alabama in 2020. This season, Lewis played 11 of the Rams’ 13 games but had just one sack and three QB hits.
He’s been listed on the injury report with a back issue, the latest injury suffered by the third-year edge rusher. As Morris said, he most likely wasn’t going to be active this week anyway, so the Rams are giving him a chance to contribute elsewhere.
