8 LA Rams players who won’t be back in 2022

Player 3 – You’ve outgrown the budget

In much the same way, the success of interior offensive lineman Austin Corbett with the Rams offense has not gone unnoticed. In fact, he has been one of the contributors to the Rams’ return to the NFL Playoff picture in both 2020 and 2021. And perhaps it was that ability to enter the locker room of a new team, suit up, and mere days later be lining up as a starter and handling his business as though he has been doing it all season.

Not only is Corbett good at what he does, but he is versatile enough to start at any of the three interior offensive line positions. That type of versatility is always in high demand, and the bidding war for Austin Corbett’s services could get heated indeed as the free agency market opens for business.

Awesome Austin

As we had stated before, the LA Rams have not needed to invest a great deal into retaining offensive linemen. The team has a solid pipeline of young talent who are eager to compete for a spot in the rotation like Tremayne Anchrum, Bobby Evans, or even Max Pircher. Even the 2022 NFL Draft appears to have a rather robust group of offensive linemen in the class of 2022.

Spotrac.com does a salary estimation of selected NFL players projected to hit the free-agent market the following year. By their estimate, Austin Corbett is valued at $35 million over four years. I can’t see the LA Rams committing that much to an offensive lineman not named Andrew Whitworth. In fact, a contract of that value would likely generate a potential fifth-round compensatory awarded draft pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. At that point, I would expect the Rams to take their chances on coaching up a rookie and getting another four years of a rookie contract to boot.