Sometimes, you just have to admit you were wrong. The Los Angeles Rams did that this offseason – not once, but twice. Less than two years after signing Brandin Cooks and Todd Gurley to lucrative extensions, the Rams moved on from both players.
First, they cut Gurley last month and took on $20.15 million in dead money spread across the next two seasons. Then this week, they traded Cooks to the Texans for a second-round pick, shedding his massive contract from their salary cap.
To use an example from Les Snead’s book of metaphors, if you look at these moves through a microscope instead of a telescope, they look terrible. With Gurley having a dead cap charge of more than $12 million in 2020, the Rams will pay $33.55 million for him and Cooks to be off the roster. That’s larger than any player’s cap hit in the NFL next season except for Jared Goff.
Assuming this trade processes Pre-June 1st, the #Rams will carry a combined $33.55M of dead cap in 2020 for Brandin Cooks & Todd Gurley, which is more than any cap hit in the entire #NFL this season – except Jared Goff ($36M)
— Spotrac (@spotrac) April 9, 2020
Furthermore, Cooks’ dead cap charge of $21.8 million will be the biggest ever for a single player. Gurley’s dead cap hit of $20.15 million was the second-most ever before the Cooks trade.
I believe that the $21.8M cap charge for Cooks will be the largest single year dead money charge ever taken for a player, surpassing the $21.12M the Steelers took for Antonio Brown last year.
— Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) April 10, 2020
Nothing about those two tweets reflects well on the Rams and their front office. However, Snead often talks about looking at things through a telescope, too, with a wide view of the future.
By trading Cooks and cutting Gurley, the Rams clearly admitted the mistakes they made by signing them to extensions a year prematurely. They could’ve allowed Gurley to play out his rookie deal through 2019, which would’ve been far more cost-prohibitive than the approach they took. The same could be said about Cooks, allowing him to finish his first contract with the fifth-year option in 2018 and then tagged him in 2019.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but the Rams felt confident in both players and that backfired in a big way. But by admitting their mistakes, they’ve cleared the books in 2021 – an offseason that might be more important than the current one.
Next offseason, Jalen Ramsey, Cooper Kupp, John Johnson, Gerald Everett, Leonard Floyd, Troy Hill, Josh Reynolds and Samson Ebukam will all be free agents. As of now, the Rams have $156 million in cap liabilities next year. If the salary cap rises to $215 million as Over the Cap is projecting, Los Angeles will have more than $58 million in cap space.
That’s not nearly as much as the Colts ($130 million) or Chargers ($128 million), but it’d be enough to sign at least three or four of the aforementioned players. Snead has already said multiple times that Ramsey, Kupp and Johnson are all part of the team’s future plans, as they should be.
Gurley will have a dead cap charge of $8.4 million next year and Cooks’ has yet to be determined, but if it’s a post-June 1 designation, he’ll count another $13 million in 2021. Regardless, it’s less than both players’ cap hits were supposed to be in L.A. next year. Gurley was set to count $13.2 million in 2021 ($4.8 million savings) and Cooks’ cap hit was going to be $16.8 million ($3.8 million savings, potentially).
But moving on from both players, the Rams freed up cap space in 2021 in advance of the expected extensions for Ramsey, Kupp and Johnson. It wasn’t cost-effective for the upcoming season, but it will pay off in the long run.