Mark Clayton, St. Louis Rams Agree To Deal; Clayton Currently PUP

Mark Clayton signs with the St. Louis Rams, ending an entire offseason’s worth of speculation and introducing some new speculation besides.

The St. Louis Rams‘ crowded wide receiver situation got even more difficult to parse Wednesday when the team resigned injured wide receiver Mark Clayton, who had emerged as Sam Bradford‘s favorite target before going down with a season-ending injury midway through the 2010 season. Assumed during the lockout to be a lock to return, Clayton fell off the radar for a while before the Rams reiterated their intentions earlier this month. Clayton is on the PUP (Physically Unable to Perform) list for the moment, meaning he could miss the first six weeks of the season at this rate.

If he doesn’t, the Rams will have to make a second difficult cut from their wide receiver corps, which now totals eight rookies and veterans. Danario Alexander, widely believed to be at the bottom of the list, could be joined by Donnie Avery, who’s gotten some cut day press despite his solid comeback from his own knee injury. Clayton was acquired by the Rams in 2010 as Avery’s emergency replacement, so I suppose it would only be fitting.