Former Broncos second-round draft pick Rahim Moore is no stranger to losing starting jobs. Twice in his five-year career he has been benched in favor of seemingly less experienced or less qualified competitors. And that same fate might befall him yet again with the Cleveland Browns, assuming that he even manages to earn a starting job.
A former 45th-overall selection, the Broncos elected to install Moore into the starting lineup right away as a rookie, where he stayed for the first five games of the season, recording an interception in that span, before he was benched in favor of Quinton Carter, a fellow rookie, but a fourth-round pick.
Carter started 10 games that season, but none since, and is currently not in the league.
As for more, he went on to be the Broncos’ primary starting safety for the next three seasons through the conclusion of his rookie contract, missing six games due to injury during the 2014 season, but he remains best known for giving up a desperate Hail Mary to the Ravens in the playoffs in 2012.
Moore signed a three-year, $12 million contract to become a starting safety for the Texans last season, but that did not last long at all, as he was not only demoted from the starting lineup after six games, but in fact benched. He was inactive for nine games last season, and he was released on March 3, less than a year since he was signed.
The Browns signed him two weeks later to a one-year deal worth $1.85 million in the hopes that he can turn his career around, and it was a low-risk move for a team looking to replace not one but two starting safeties.
Both starters at the back end for Cleveland from last season are gone, with Tashaun Gipson taking flight in free agency with a nice contact offer and veteran Donte Whitner being released after two seasons. Whitner remains a free agent.
In spite of his veteran experience, however, the Browns may look past Moore in favor of two of their own young safeties in Ibraheim Campbell and Jordan Poyer, the latter starting four games last season and the latter one, due to injuries, but both received playing time.
Poyer is entering his fourth season, Campbell his second. A fourth-round pick last year, Campbell, like the rest of the team outside of the rookie class and the free agents brought in this year, are already without the regime that brought them here, but Poyer was already removed from the Eagles, the team who drafted him, who released him a month into his rookie season.
Poyer recorded 43 tackles, two interceptions, and a sack last season, and figures to have the strongest grip on a roster spot. The veteran Moore will have to compete with Campbell, and perhaps even rookie fourth-round pick Derrick Kindred, for the other. He should make the roster, but he might not even see a helmet by mid-season unless he really turns his career around, even if he recorded four interceptions as recently as 2014.
