The salary cap makes building a truly dominant roster difficult. The best players get paid accordingly, and with limited spending money, keeping everyone is near-impossible. The Rams are loaded with talent and have paid most of their top players, but as a result, their cap space is limited.
They’re projected to have the ninth-lowest cap space in 2020, and that’s without giving Jalen Ramsey an extension. That’s with Cory Littleton and Dante Fowler Jr. both hitting free agency. And that’s with Cooper Kupp only counting $1.2 million against the cap next season.
It’s going to be tough for the Rams to keep all of those players, as well as others such as John Johnson, Gerald Everett and Robert Woods, but they’re not in cap trouble.
At least, not according to general manager Les Snead. He says that’s a false narrative, one that doesn’t actually reflect the Rams’ financial situation.
“I do call it probably a false perception,” Snead told reporters this week, via ESPN. “Ultimately, I can see why that would be a perception, but maybe there’s an element of staying a little too shallow.”
There are always methods for manipulating the cap. Players can have their contracts restructured, others can be cut or traded, and the salary cap rises every year. Those are factors that can help the Rams, as well as a new CBA that’s coming this year.
“From a salary-cap standpoint, and I assume the cap does go up, there’s a new collective bargaining agreement that’s coming that’s another variable that we don’t know about,” Snead said. “We’ve shown in the past that when you have commodities that you might move on with via trade to collect draft capital that maybe the perception says you don’t have and to clear cap space.”
Paying Ramsey is one of the next dominos to fall, considering he’s only under contract through next season. After that, he’ll become a free agent, and it’s safe to assume he’d be unwilling to play on the franchise tag in 2021.
Todd Gurley and Brandin Cooks would seem to be trade candidates, given their lack of production for the price the Rams are paying, but finding someone to take on their contracts will be difficult. Restructuring Goff’s contract can free up $16.8 million, which can help create space for Ramsey’s eventual deal.
There are countless ways to find spending money, all of which the Rams will likely explore this offseason.
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