It initially wasn’t believed to be serious. It ended up being sort of serious. But not as serious as it could have been.
Rams receiver Robert Woods will miss some time with a shoulder injury suffered in Sunday’s 24-7 loss to the Vikings. Coach Sean McVay shared the news with reporters on Monday.
“It’s probably going to be a couple weeks on Robert, so that’s unfortunate,” McVay said. “It requires some guys to step up and fill in for the void left by Robert and he’s done a lot of great things. It’s an opportunity for some other guys to step up, and I know he’ll take care of himself and hopefully we’ll get him back sooner than later, but that’s what it is right now and we’ll continue to gather more information.”
McVay said that the strategy for replacing Woods is “something that we’ll discuss,” and that it will happen “kind of by committee.” The first-year coach mentioned Tavon Austin, Josh Reynolds, Mike Thomas, and Pharoh Cooper as players who will get more work.
The injury happened late in the game, and at first the hope was that it wouldn’t cause Woods to miss much if any time.
“I think we got good, positive news back on that and the optimistic approach is hopefully a couple weeks,” McVay said. “There was a chance that if it was something other than what it ended up being, that it was going to maybe require surgery, but it was nothing like that. So those are positive things and there’s a guy that he’ll do all the right things in the meantime to try to get him back on the field sooner than later.”
Even if Woods wasn’t injured, McVay hopes to get Austin more involved in the offense.
“The bottom line is Tavon is too dynamic of a playmaker for our offense to not try to get him involved a little bit more than yesterday,” McVay said. “You can sit here and make excuses that we didn’t have enough snaps and things like that, but it’s on me and I’ve got to do a better job of getting a feel for the flow of the game and finding a way to get him involved, especially when that was part of our plan and we kind of went away from that.”
Austin, a top-10 pick in 2013 and the recipient of a four-year, $42 million deal in 2016, has seven catches for 43 yards on the year, along with 36 carries for 171. Woods, who signed a five-year, $34 million deal with the Rams as a free agent after four years in Buffalo, has 47 catches fore 703 yards and four touchdowns.
Sammy Watkins and rookie Cooper Kupp already have significant roles in the passing game; they could end up getting more looks, too.
The Rams host the 8-2 Saints on Sunday, followed by a visit to the Cardinals and a showdown with the 9-1 Eagles.