Chris Rumph is entering the 2024 season on the LA Chargers' roster bubble needing to prove that he is worth keeping around on the 53-man roster. Rumph plays in an extremely stacked edge-rusher room and has not proven much in his first two years in the NFL.
With a new head coach and front office in place, Rumph being a recent draft pick does not hold as much weight as it would have with the same coaching staff and front office. Head coach Jim Harbaugh and general manager Joe Hortiz are going to carry the 53 best players, regardless of their draft status.
Rumph needs to turn in a strong training camp and ball out in the preseason to secure his spot on the Chargers. Unfortunately, doing the latter may now seem impossible for Rumph, as he suffered an injury in the team's first preseason game of the year. Rumph suffered an apparent foot injury and limped off the field and into the locker room.
Untimely injury may destroy Chris Rumph's chance of making Chargers roster
Unfortunately for Rumph he is in a position where he has to prove himself to the Chargers coaching staff and that is going to be harder to do if he is dealing with an injury. The seriousness of the injury is unclear but it still does not help that his day was cut short against the Seattle Seahawks.
Rumph also has more competition in the loaded edge-rusher room than he expected. Tre'Mon Morris-Bash has been turning heads during Chargers training camp and he looked impressive against Seattle on Saturday.
Morris-Bash did not record any tackles or sacks but he did generate a pressure on the quarterback in his first drive in the preseason. If he continues to impress at training camp, and parlays that into good showings in the preseason, then he has a good chance of leapfrogging Rumph on the depth chart.
Those odds only grow is Rumph is watching on the sideline. This injury could not have come at a worse time for the third-year edge rusher and it may end up factoring into whether or not he makes the roster.
At the end of the day, it is a long preseason and Rumph's injury might be something that only sidelines him for a short amount of time. But if not, it might be time to start including Morris-Bash in your Chargers' 53-man roster predictions.