LA Rams News: 2020 or bust for these 5 offensive players

5 LA Rams players must perform well in 2020 or face finding a new team

The LA Rams do not have an easy time of things in 2020. Perhaps one of the most difficult challenges in how the Rams navigate the future is how will the team manage the 55 man roster to remain successful?  If production was predictable, injuries preventable, and contracts are written in a team-friendly fashion, that would not be nearly the difficult task that it is proving to be.

Okay, that’s all a pipe-dream. In the NFL, risk comes with the territory. So when it’s time to renew a contract for a solid contributor, the team assumes some risk when it categorizes some compensation with guarantees. It balances that by including incentive pays, compensation tied directly to performance and statistical production. Unfortunately, the Rams had written many contracts with more guarantees than incentives, which has created significant dead cap money for the team in 2020.

Lesson learned

The Rams learned an expensive lesson through the trials and tribulations of signing significant offensive contributors from the 2018 season. Without incentives, those players are happy to take home huge increases in paychecks even while their production plummets. So now the Rams are working incentive clauses into contracts. Those clauses kick in additional payments if the player meets certain specific performance criteria. Those type of clauses ensures players continue to earn proper compensation for performance while limiting the amount of money earned for just showing up.

But 2020 has arrived. While the team has restocked the roster, neither the team nor the players can be either certain or confident about what the future holds in store. Some solid performers struggled mightily in 2019, while some players seemed to emerge from nowhere to lead the team.  So who will it be in 2020?  While that may be a discussion for another day, we know that there are five players whose future with the Rams in 2021 depends on how well they perform this season. The first such player is the right offensive tackle Rob Havenstein.