LA Rams: Pros and Cons of fielding the youngest team in the NFL

Pro: The LA Rams have multiple elite players

The cost of doing business in the NFL is expensive indeed. As soon as a team develops a superstar performer, 31 other teams lay in wait to outbid for that player when the contract ends. To complicate matters further, the NFL self-imposed a salary cap in 1994 to prevent the richest NFL teams from gobbling up the best talent and making the league less competitive.

Los Angeles Rams

The impact of that decision, coupled with the ease of free agency, has created a very dynamic roster for all 32 teams in the NFL. Teams that find success lose their key players to other teams that can afford to pay more, which dilutes the best teams and improves the competitiveness of lesser teams.

The fact that the LA Rams have an abundance of youth means that the team is overwhelmingly made up of players on their first NFL contracts, which are very inexpensive when compared to veteran contracts. That allows the Rams to afford to pay the market price of some of the best players in the NFL today.  The Rams have All-Pros Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey. The team has re-signed OLB Leonard Floyd. The team has traded for quarterback Matthew Stafford, who in turn will be protected by left tackle Andrew Whitworth.

Both offensive and defensive veterans, who perform at their peak, are strategically located on the football field and among this team’s roster. That is only possible thanks to the LA Rams infusing the team’s ranks with new and talented players who continue to balance the cost of numerous elite players and the dead cap created by abandoning burdening contracts.