Matthew Stafford and LA Rams take 1st step to hammer out extension

The LA Rams have just assembled a Super Bowl-winning roster. The season is over. Quite a few player contracts are expiring. And they all want to be rightfully compensated for contributing to an NFL Championship team.  So the question is…

Now, who is going to pay for that? Now that the LA Rams season has ended on a high note, there is the matter of locking down top stars, finding the funds to do so, adding new talent, and then going about the process of restocking the entire organization, from top to bottom, to be ready for the 2022 NFL season.

Of course, having won Super Bowl LVI in their first season together, I’m willing to bet that both quarterback Matthew Stafford and the entire LA Rams organization want to get something done about extending that good-through-2022 contract.

Free up LA Rams free agency funds, finally

Even beyond that, the LA Rams know that in order to free up funds to retain outbound free agency NFL stars, they will need to shake some stacks of cash loose from the current contract holders.  So why not kill two birds with one stone?

While it made complete sense to hold off extending Stafford after trading for him, if nothing else than to see whether it would all gel, there is every reason in the world to act on locking him into a multi-year extension. Hopefully, the LA Rams will have learned from their past extremely enthusiastic and optimistic contracts to try to sustain a solid blend of financial security for the player while ensuring that the organization has sufficient financial flexibility to address the needs of the entire roster.

The reason that Stafford, who is still under contract, would be the first order of business is the simple fact that his renegotiated contract can release a huge stack of jack if done correctly. Right now, he creates a $23 million salary-cap hit to the LA Rams in 2022. Per Spotrac.com, he is one of four players at or over the $20 million salary cap mark for 2022 (DL Aaron Donald, DB Jalen Ramsey, and OLB Leonard Floyd are the remaining three).