Rams roster will need Brink's truck to afford extensions for future stars

Somebody on the LA Rams roster is going to get paid. When the team pivots to 2027, the rookie contracts of the 2023 rookie class will have expired, forcing the team to pay fair market value for the astonishing rookies on the team's roster. Or, the team will be forced to concede the future years of those players to other NFL teams who have the financial means to meet their expectations.

Either way, they will be paid.

The thing about future-looking when it comes to an NFL roster is that fans can conveniently ignore the financial factors when considering an NFL team's long term needs. You can see clear examples of that as unsolicited advice grows in frequency and volume from fans urging teams to pay whatever an NFL player demands to sign the next contract. But any monies spent on one player is exhausted and gone when the team sits down to negotiate the next player contract.

And so, the tenuous balancing act of paying the right players the right amount, and all the while ensuring that the team does not overspend on any single positional group, is a necessary and vital exercise for every NFL GM. Fans seldom pause to consider this when lobbying hard for the team to loosen the purse strings.

Let's consider the financial squeeze that this team could be facing at the expiration of RB Kyren Williams contract at the end of 2025. Based on the market value of featured running backs right now, it's not outlandish to look at Kyren Willams market value in the 2026 NFL Free Agency mariket to be in excess of $13+ million. After all, just look at the current FMV of some of the NFL's top running backs right now:

Of course, that is only one player, Kyren Williams, and it does presume that he will continue to be among the NFL's Top-5 running backs in both 2024 and 2025.