This time last year, the Los Angeles Rams were buyers on the trade market. They pursued Christian McCaffrey before he was dealt to the 49ers, and they also made an offer for Panthers edge rusher Brian Burns.
This season has a much different feel for Los Angeles, being in a rebuild centered around young, cheap players, but might the Rams go after Burns again before the Oct. 31 trade deadline? It seems unlikely, given their cap situation and their reluctance to bring in veteran edge rushers, but Pro Football Focus has one proposal Los Angeles could make to Carolina.
PFF laid out 10 trade ideas for teams across the NFL and for Burns, the site has the Rams offering a first-round pick in 2024, a second-rounder in 2025 and a fourth-round selection in 2026. That’s less than what the Rams reportedly offered last year (2024 first, 2025 first and 2023 second), which makes sense because Burns now has one fewer year left on his contract.
A new-look Rams team is exceeding expectations by a good margin so far in 2023 and should be looking to add a premium talent to a roster that ranks dead last in cash spending as opposed to first in cash spending in 2022, when they offered two first-round picks and a second-round pick for Burns. This offer removes one of the first-round picks from the equation, as we’re a year later into Burns’ career with zero cheap years remaining. From Carolina’s perspective, they replace the 2024 first- and 2025 second-round picks they sent to Chicago in the Bryce Young trade.
What makes this trade highly unlikely is the contract situation. Burns is in the final year of his rookie deal, which means he’ll become a free agent in March. So if the Rams were to make a deal like this, they’d have to extend Burns unless they want to trade all those picks for a half-season rental.
Not to mention, Burns’ base salary of $16 million this season is high. The Panthers have already paid six weeks of it for a total of $5.33 million, which means the Rams would still be on the hook for almost $11 million the rest of the season.
With only $5.4 million in cap space, that would be tough for the Rams to pull off.
It’s a fun trade to think about and it would absolutely fill a need for Los Angeles, but it doesn’t seem very likely that the Rams will be aggressive at the trade deadline, especially for a player on an expiring contract with such a high cap hit to begin with.