LA Rams NFL Free Agency Week 1 recap

Limbo Rams

The List of players who have not yet signed with any team is getting smaller but still represents a significant loss to the team. After all, even among the players who have not yet signed with another team represent a significant number of snaps from the team’s defense.
Many teams who allow contracts to lapse, or who release players due to salary cap concerns. Unfortunately, that is likely not the case for the LA Rams.

Without exact and specific terms on the Blythe, Robinson, and Floyd contracts, it’s impossible to cite where the Rams are in their current salary cap situation. But before these contracts are factored in, Spotrac.com has the team at only $18.7 million in available space. That same report does not reflect the terms of the three outstanding players.  The math comes very close, either way, placing a virtual chokehold on the Rams efforts to sign additional players. So who is unsigned?

OLB Clay Matthews – details of his release are available here.
ILB Bryce Hager                       – his free-agent analysis is here
K Greg Zuerlein                        – his free-agent analysis is here
DE Morgan Fox                       – his free-agent analysis is here
DB Donte Deayon                   – his free-agent analysis is here
OLB Josh Carraway                  – his free-agent analysis is here
CB Nickell Robey-Coleman   – his free-agent analysis is here
QB Blake Bortles                      – his free-agent analysis is here

The struggle for the Rams roster is that many of these “limbo” players were part of the team’s depth at critical positions. The Rams linebacking corps has bee decimated by the potential loss of five of the players, many of whom accounted for the lion’s share of the team’s snaps at that position.  Thankfully, the Rams did sign two linebackers to future reserve contracts in January 2020.