LA Rams NFL Free Agency Week 1 recap

LA Rams can now look back at the first week of NFL Free Agency in this recap. The six picks in the 2020 NFL Draft grow increasingly important,

The LA Rams emerged from the first week somewhat intact. Simply from the team roster, the impact was more window dressing than substantial. The Rams had no money to spend, so not spending much money in free agency was the natural outcome.

The LA Rams did some things well, some things not so well, and some things got a huge INCOMPLETE grade. But the 2020 NFL Free Agency period has only concluded its first week. If you have commented or concluded that the Rams have mailed it in, or will finish under .500 in 2020, I can reassure you that the team is just getting started.

Let’s not kid ourselves. We knew exactly what this off-season would entail, from the moment LA Rams general manager openly admitted in a March 4, 2020 interview that the team would not explore restructuring major contracts to free up salary-cap space for the 2020 NFL Free Agency market.

At just $23 million in available cap space, and looking at re-signing left tackle Andrew Whitworth and outside linebacker Dante Fowler Jr. as the team’s priorities, there was no hope for a long shopping list getting filled by the Rams this year.  Entering free agency, Whitworth estimated salary cap hit was $10.6 million per season, while Fowler’s estimated salary cap hit was $16 million per season.  Combined, the two players exceeded all of the Rams’ available funds.

So who DIDN’T the Rams retain?