2022 NFL deals for players could have ripple effect on LA Rams roster

In the grand scheme of things, there are three separate but interrelated choke points for any given team. Yes, the LA Rams are subjected to all three. There is of course the number of players that each NFL team can have on their respective roster. That limits offseason rosters to 90 players, and in-season active rosters to the 53-man roster.

Well, more or less. More as teams can activate two players for NFL games per week. Less because only 46 players can suit up each week for an NFL game. Yeah, it’s a bit complicated. Roster talk can get a bit too involved for this particular topic. We’ll get back to it, I promise. For now? Let’s move on.

There are the number and value of draft picks that each team can have when selecting new rookie prospects to add to the team’s roster. Each team is allotted one pick in each round of the NFL Draft. Some teams that suffer a net loss of free agents are awarded additional draft picks, known as compensatory picks, to help offset the depletion of talent via the NFL Free Agency market.

So, we now face that salary cap serpent

Finally, there is the annual salary cap, which after a significant decrease in response to the COVID-19-related economic downturn, has bounced back to another record for the NFL teams to spend on players. Some say the LA Rams have discovered a workaround for that one. I’m not so certain that’s true.

With the NFL increasing their season to 17 games, a larger portion of all NFL revenues will be allocated directly to player compensation. And with more games, the contracts for televised broadcast rights have never been more attractive, and more expensive. The result is that the NFL and the 32 teams that comprise the National Football League have one helluva golden goose, and she’s laying more golden eggs than ever.

The net effect of the NFL salary cap annual changes have been:

Year            NFL Salary cap      Increase/(Decrease)
2017          $167,000,000
2018          $177,200,000         $10,200,000
2019          $188.200,000         $11,000,000
2020          $198.200,000         $10,000,000
2021          $182,500,000        ($15,700,000)
2022          $208,200,000         $25,700,000

That increase from 2021 to 2022 amounts to nearly a 15 percent increase from the 2021 NFL salary cap, and that money had to be spent somewhere. For teams like the LA Rams, a team that has its money working in the active roster each year, the increase merely allowed the team a bit of relief from the annual jigsaw puzzle of trying to fit well-paid players under the NFL salary ceiling each year.  But what of other NFL teams?

We are family

Some teams entered the 2022 NFL season with no worries about fiscal constraints. On the contrary, over half of the 32 teams in the NFL viewed their 2022 roster as an opportunity to spend nearly $25 million on new players. No more players, mind you. But to shop for veteran players in the NFL Free Agency market.

One team that had copious amounts of money to spend was the Jacksonville Jaguars. And with a new head coach and a lot of desire to change their losing streak, the team wanted to make some noise in the 2022 NFL Free Agency market.

Salary cap spending is not uniform in the NFL.

Thunder road

Of course, for the players whose contracts ended after the 2021 NFL season, that was all music to their ears. But the Jaguars did not just tune up the band kind of noise. They set their loudspeakers to the highest volume setting and then began to bang on the kettle drums, rolling out a new contract to an NFL veteran player in such a loud and foreboding fashion that the news broke like a thunderstorm bearing down on Dorothy and Toto at their Kansas home.

Of course, NFL players were all for it. For 24 months, players had shared part of the burden of COVID-19 right alongside their NFL teams. They had stepped up to help salvage an NFL season when there was uncertainty about the future for players, teams, and the league. So as the NFL emerged from 2021 to the 2022 NFL season, not only were the teams eager to restore NFL economics to normal, the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) was just as eager to do so.

Show me the money

Players who had to forego pay increases as their contract talks stalled in 2020 and in 2021 were waiting their day to reclaim the same economic restoration as their teams. And brother, when the NFL salary cap rose in 2022, the players saw that they had the opportunity to enjoy a similar elevation for their services. And so now, they want to be paid.

Well, some do. Some have found their ship has already come in. One player, former Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Christian Kirk, got paid handsomely, in a deal that shook the very foundation of the NFL salary structure in one thunderous boom.

And so, a good but not great player reset the market for NFL Wide receivers. In 2021, Kirk was the 27th-ranked NFL wide receiver in terms of yards gained, his career-best. He was the 47th player chosen in the 2018 NFL Draft. But now, thanks to a surprisingly lucrative contract, he has become the pace car for a wave of NFL wide receivers who are all eager to cash in on the new market value of wide receivers.

A rising tide lifts all boats

Who wants to share in that market inflation? Some of the best young receivers in the NFL, that’s who. And many will sit out until their teams redo their contracts.

And that is not where this ends. You see, that higher price for receivers not only has an impact on the entire wide receiver value but has an impact on what the market value is for LA Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp, a player who just set the bar for the NFL receivers in 2021

So now, as the Rams approach renegotiating the contracts of both All-Pro defensive lineman Aaron Donald, they are also back to the bargaining table to rework All-Pro wide receiver, Cooper Kupp. And this contract will likely dwarf that of Christian Kirk’s shocking deal.

Gotta cover the cover guys’ contracts too

It wasn’t long before the guys who cover those receivers wanted a slice of that pie too. After all, the ask of the NFL’s top cornerbacks is to neutralize the NFL’s top receivers. In short, defenses must stake their guys to the same amount as the offense spends. So, the reset of the NFL wide receiver market would eventually reset the market for defensive backs as well.

Well, that just happened. The Cleveland Browns have just signed a new deal with Denzel Ward, making him, for the time being, the highest-paid NFL defensive back, averaging $100,000 more per year than LA Rams All-Pro DB Jalen Ramsey makes.

Ward is now paid more than Ramsey? Yes, that’s right.

News travels fast

And you can bet that players’ contracts and salary cap impacts travel fast in the NFL. Moments after the deal was announced, Jalen Ramsey was already on social media, acknowledging his contemporary’s good fortune and offering congratulations.

Such is the life of building the roster by finding the few elite game changers in the NFL, signing them to the roster, and then building around them. At some point in time, the league catches up to them. It may be in production. It most certainly will occur in salary. And as it does, the LA Rams must set other tasks aside and sit down to renegotiate fair compensation that allows the team to pay for a competitive roster, but one that keeps the team’s elite players among the highest-paid tier in the NFL.

For now, the LA Rams have gotten in front of this. Long before the market zaniness, the team had already publicly committed to getting new deals for both Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp. That not only helps sustain high morale on the team but sets the standard that many other teams are unable to keep pace with.

But this is not a set-it-and-forget-it issue. As the Rams work to spend cap money fairly and pay all of the key players, revisiting existing deals will certainly become more and more of the team’s annual workload. Unfortunately, the cadence for the Rams can be upset relatively easily. After all, it’s not what the top teams are willing to pay their players that throws everything out of balance.

It’s the Jacksonville Jaguars and a deal with WR Christian Kirk that makes everything spin out of control.