LA Rams FA Austin Corbett to Panthers should net 5th-round comp pick

There is an embedded strategy in the LA Rams Free agency master plan. It is a financially driven agenda, with the team sizing up the way they’ve spent money in the past, and plans to redistribute funds more evenly in the future. Inside that strategy is another strategy, involving the LA Rams projected draft picks. We’ll discuss that in a moment. For now, let’s just put a pin in it.

An easily overlooked aspect of any fan that is invested in the transactions of the team is the distribution of finances. No team succeeds if a handful of the roster consumes most of the salary cap space. NFL GMs understand this, which is why not every team chases down the best of the best players.

Rams Free Agency plan underway

The LA Rams front office continues to balance their top-paid players by investing in later round younger players, coaching them up, and giving them every chance to succeed in the NFL. It is that organizational effort to optimize the talents of later-round draft picks that allows the team to spend significant sums of money.

That allows the team to offset highly compensated players with younger less expensive players. And then to balance spending further by ensuring that no positional group gets too far out of hand, but does not fall too far behind. Younger players benefit from playing with elite NFL players, learning from them, and developing their own NFL style. Veterans benefit from the chance at better compensation, and a bevy of younger players to consume snaps in rotations.

When we examined the LA Rams future in terms of their projected positional spending, we noticed that the offensive line was significantly underfunded for 2022. It was a clue that the Rams front office would be looking to extend some offensive linemen, which they did.