The 7 worst contracts in LA Rams franchise history

The LA Rams have laid some eggs in their day. Successful NFL contract writing takes some science, some art, lots of practice, and far too much math for my liking.  It’s the challenge of each and every NFL team, a choreographed tango between each player with the team’s front office. But each dance move for one player must be weighed against what it will do to the team’s entire dance floor.

It’s a synchronized mathematical waltz. The Rams’ front office enters each off-season with a host of synchronized contractual tasks that must be performed in chronological order so as not to trigger any NFL sanctions for inadvertently popping above the annual salary cap ceiling.

If the team overpays, they have a few options, but none that end up maintaining the same chemistry and relationship with that player. If the team underpays a player who outperforms a contract, the LA Rams are one of the teams that will revisit the contract and recalibrate the compensation to reflect the better-than-expected play.

To be honest, the LA Rams wrapped themselves up into a pretty bad financial predicament heading into and after their 2018 Super Bowl appearance. But to their credit, the team bit the bullet, found creative ways to unravel the financial quagmire, and are now on their way back to a plateau of predictable payroll.

Oh, and in the process, remained highly successful, and even ended up winning Super Bowl LVI. That’s just not something that happens in the NFL very often. A great analogy is to compare what wide receiver, Cooper Kupp, did on the football field in 2021, both the regular season and postseason,? That’s the financial equivalent to what the finance folks with the LA Rams have been able to accomplish in the past three NFL seasons.

After all, two years ago we were one of the websites pointing out just how horrific those 2018 and 2019 contracts were. We dared to ask the question: Do some LA Rams players stop trying after they “got paid”? Since that article, the Rams front office has delivered some of the best team-friendly contracts in the NFL. Leonard Floyd.? Von Miller? Odell Beckham Jr.? Matthew Stafford? All have been pure masterpieces.