LA Rams working to re-sign OLB Leonard Floyd in less than 24 hours

The LA Rams are not going down without a fight. Cap crunch or no cap crunch, the LA Rams loved what outside linebacker Leonard Floyd added to the defense. As well they should. The Rams defense in the past was susceptible to the run because the team wanted to get after the quarterback from the edge position.

That all changed with the addition of Floyd. If you don’t recall, the presence of Floyd (among others) allowed the Rams to defend both the pass and the run successfully. In fact, he was the only edge rusher to record a quarterback sack until teammate Ogbonnia Okoronkwo did so in game four against the New York Giants.

Floyd was a stone wall at setting the edge, a tackling machine at bringing down the ball carrier, and a terror to the opposing quarterbacks. Even though he allowed all seven of seven passes targeting him to find their mark, the yards per completion was a paltry 2.6 yards. That is a true win.

Logical move

So it makes complete sense that a Rams team focused upon winning in 2021 would want to re-sign a player who has no obvious flaws. And that is exactly what appears to be happening here.

How can the Rams hope to do this with no conceivable cap space? There are always ways to free up cap space. The deadline of the new NFL season is simply that point in time that the math must all work itself out. That means that the Rams can reach an agreement to re-sign Floyd by the deadline of 9:00 am PT on Monday, March 15, and use the next 49 hours to negotiate ways to pay for it.

So what is this negotiation deadline? Well, after the 9:00 am PT deadline passes, players and their agents can negotiate new deals with any NFL team. Of course, more buyers could up the price and complicate negotiations significantly. Teams can still re-sign players after free agency begins, as the Rams had done so with both Andrew Whitworth and Austin Blythe. Of course, that is just 20 hours away.

While that may seem like a frantically paced method of going about managing the salary cap, it seems to be the way the Rams enjoy fitting it all in. I will say that I am in full agreement with the Rams here. As long as the Rams can get him in at or below his estimated market value of $13 million per year I am content.