Rams News

Rams add receivers Floyd, Sellers
By Elizabethe Holland
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

The Rams upped their receiver corps by two Thursday by adding a receiver injured last year while with the team and another who spent most of the 1997 season on their practice squad.
Signed to one-year deals were Malcolm Floyd, a 6-foot, 185-pound unrestricted free agent who is recovering from a torn right Achilles' tendon he suffered Dec. 14, and 6-foot, 195-pound practice-squad member Donald Sellers, an exclusive-rights free agent who played college football at New Mexico.
Floyd caught four passes in four games for the Rams after being signed Sept. 30 but then was placed on the injured reserve list because of his injury and surgery to repair it.
Although initially told that his recovery would take eight to nine months, Floyd has been taking part in offseason training activities at Rams Park this week. Although the 25-year-old hasn't participated in any team drills, he has run some routes and performed some individual drills.
``I just wanted to show my face, that I could perform,'' he said. ``They wanted to see it firsthand. . . . I know by training camp I'll be full-go.''
Coach Dick Vermeil, who put Floyd's recovery at about 80 percent, had the severity of the receiver's injury in mind when he decided to re-sign him. But rather than Floyd's status hurting his chances, it seems to have helped him.
``He really doesn't have any place to go because he was only on a one-year contract and he got hurt, and no one else is going to give him an opportunity coming off an Achilles' tendon,'' Vermeil said. ``So we're going to give him an opportunity to come back and see if he can't get going again. He was doing a good job last year prior to getting hurt.''
Floyd couldn't be happier with the news. When his tendon was torn, his first thought was that his career was over. But aggressive rehabilitation has done wonders, he said.
However, more wonders may be required for Floyd to find a steady home on the Rams roster.
``I have a long road ahead of me,'' he said. ``He (Vermeil) told me I have a ways to catch up because they have people out here who have worked their butts off. . . . They're tremendous athletes.''
Floyd began last season with the Tennessee Oilers but was waived Sept. 5. In three-plus seasons with the Oilers, where he played under Jerry Rhome, he caught 22 passes for 312 yards and two touchdowns. Floyd, a third-round draft pick in 1994 out of Fresno State, also returned seven punts for 74 yards.
Said Vermeil: ``He's very smooth and quick, and he can separate from a defender, and that's the critical thing. And he's really a good kid, a wonderful kid.''

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