The Rams have made a sensible, low-drama move by signing Eric Kendricks to their practice squad on Tuesday. At 34, he is no longer the sort of player you build a defense around every week, but he is exactly the kind of experienced body a team can lean on when the season starts chewing through depth.
This is not a splashy signing. It is a football one. Kendricks brings 11 NFL seasons and 158 regular and postseason games to the Rams, and that matters because experience is not some decorative extra in the middle of a long season. It is often the difference between surviving a stretch of injuries and watching a unit unravel in real time.
A veteran with mileage
Kendricks has been a full-time starter for each of his first 11 NFL seasons, which tells you exactly what kind of player the Rams are getting. He has done the job, done it for a long time, and done it often enough to understand what the league asks from a linebacker once the game starts speeding up.
The move also keeps him in his home state for Year 12 in the NFL, which gives the signing a neat bit of local logic without changing the basic football reality. The Rams are adding a veteran who can provide depth on defense, not pretending they have landed a long-term fix. That distinction matters.
Why this makes sense for the Rams
There is a reason teams keep circling back to players like Kendricks. They may not be headline-grabbers at this stage, but they reduce risk. They give coaches someone they can trust in the meeting room and on the field if the situation demands it. And for a team trying to keep its defensive structure intact over a full season, that has value.
His recent resume is mixed, which is part of why this is a practice squad deal rather than something bigger. Kendricks joined the 49ers in November of last year, made only three regular-season appearances, then started both of San Francisco’s playoff contests and totaled 19 tackles. That is not the profile of a player arriving in peak form, but it is still a reminder that he can be called on when the stakes rise.
So the Rams are not betting the house here. They are adding insurance. In a league that constantly punishes teams for thinking they are one injury away from being fine, that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Eric Kendricks may not be the future of anything, but as veteran depth on defense, he is a smart, practical addition.
