LA Rams news: Salary struggles show team must hire cap expert

LA Rams News: Despite salary cap moves to release enough money to sign all free agents, signing drafted rookies means more work

As 2020 progresses towards the beginning of the new NFL football season, LA Rams news continues to trickle in over the work needed for 2020 salary cap space. Either the Rams are being very slow and methodical, the issue is extremely complex, or a bit of both. So far, the news about contract signings has been impeded, and contract details are almost entirely disconnected from the announcement of the team acquiring a new player.

Thankfully, there are two websites which are a wellspring of NFL salary cap information about the LA Rams: Over the Cap.com and Spotrac.com have both done a wonderful job publishing the latest and greatest imperfect details available into an easily understood and legible summary of the Rams cap status by the individual player and in total. Their work has been remarkable, stitching together financial details of player contracts with no single source of information.

As of today, Over the Cap.com reflects the LA Rams with just $419,169 dollars in available cap space.  But some nagging details continue to need additional work. You see, in order to reflect all nine drafted rookies in the summary, each was assigned a place holder minimum of just $610,000.  That falls shy of the Rams second-round rookies RB Cam Akers and Van Jefferson by an estimated $1 Million, and third-round rookies Edge Terrell Lewis and S/CB Terrell Burgess by another $400,000.

All in all, the Rams are capped on the top 51 player contracts. Per Over The Cap, that salary cutoff is currently $675,000.  So a new contract to RB Cam Akers of $1.25 million / year will be included in the top-51 contracts. But that pushes a contract worth $675,000 out of the top 51. So the impact of his inclusion will be the difference, or just $550,000. We asked the question of how will the Rams pay for their 2020 NFL Draft class, and a month later we are no closer to the answer.

No margin, no mission

The Rams margin is so razor-thin at this point, that even that pushes the team over the limit. And after all the roster moves made to clean up 2021 salary cap space, these unaddressed details are not giving the Rams organization a very good look to the nation right now. We now know that the Rams freed up $7.2 million by restructuring QB Jared Goff‘s contract (not a pay cut, just reclassing salary to bonus) and $1.7 million by restructuring OT Rob Havenstein‘s contract (again, just by reclassing salary to bonus).

The Rams have agreed to a one-year deal worth $10 million with OLB Leonard Floyd. But to squeeze that contract under the salary cap, the actual contract is actually a three-year deal, with $5 million in 2020 salary and $5 million in signing bonus. To lower the cap hit, the Rams have options to retain Floyd in years two and three, allowing the team to spread the bonus over three seasons. Why is that important?

Despite the protests of GM Les Snead about restructuring contracts kicking the can down the road, this contract structure does exactly that, pushing $3.33 million of Floyd’s contract hit into 2021.

This process is pretty frustrating to fans who judge opportunities for the Rams to sign free agents who could potentially provide a huge positive impact for the team. The problem is that the Rams are simply out of money. And any effort to create cap space today simply places makes 2021 that much worse.

Rams must hire cap expert

The LA Rams organization needs to make a strong hire to their salary cap management staff.  It truly does not help that both the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks are recognized by NFL agents as being quite adept at salary cap management. So far, the strategy of spending the money and hoping that the cap will increase to balance the Rams’ financial commitments has backfired on several occasions.  And with the current coronavirus environment, the NFL salary cap may actually shrink in 2021, with some estimates coming in at one-half of the current levels.

The Rams have handed out huge contracts bulging with guaranteed money. As of today, the Rams have over $163 million committed in 2021.  Much of that money is guaranteed. While all of this salary cap talk may not buoy the spirits, we do so to point out the weakest link of the Rams organization.

The LA Rams can find talent in the NFL Draft. And the organization is uncannily agile in finding NFL caliber talent among the ranks of undrafted free agents. But the team is getting clobbered whenever the team signs contracts bursting with player-friendly terms. No matter how much success the Rams have on the football field, losing in contract negotiations annually will make it incredibly difficult to remain in the playoff hunt for any length of time.