Do LA Rams face sit ’em or start ’em dilemma in Week 18?

The LA Rams have won their 12th game, a number we had urged the team to accomplish this season. But as the Rams have done so, there is still work to be done. So as events shake out as Week 17 games run to their conclusion, the team will be facing Week 18 with a very important question: Should the Rams sit of start their starters in Week 18 against the San Francisco 49ers?

Or is this even a question mark?

To the LA Rams, the roster is a perilous division of the have’s versus the have not’s. A situation that was never the team’s intention, but rather the cold harsh reality of compliance to the NFL Salary Cap. The LA Rams have always wanted to take care of their best players. Unfortunately, that was not always reciprocated.

Good intentions led to difficult decisions

The problem began in 2020 when the LA Rams traded WR Brandin Cooks and waive RB Todd Gurley. Both were vital contributors in the 2018 season, a season that found the LA Rams competing in Super Bowl LIII. A third contributor, QB Jared Goff, was traded away at the start of the 2021 NFL season.

Trades like this happen all the time. But the Rams, in their haste to lock in talent once thought to be vital to the team’s future success, poured a lot of guaranteed dollars into the pockets of Cooks, Gurley, and Goff. In 2020, the bill came due in the form of $38,466,148 of dead cap money against a salary cap of just over $203 million. In 2021, that bill swelled to $48,035,158 of dead cap money, against a salary cap that had shrunk to just over $187 million.

With so few dollars to toss around, the team had to go cheap on roster additions. While the front office has done an admirable job of finding overlooked talent, there is no question that the team will suffer if a key contributor is sent to the bench with an injury.