Rams paying the price for salary cap problems

Over 25% of the Rams 2024 salary cap isn’t helping the team yet

One can hardly blame the Los Angeles Rams for their freewheeling spending ways, since it was this same level of “never stop building the roster” exuberance that got the team to two Super Bowls over four years with one championship win. We expected the Rams to have to suffer for their post-Super Bowl overspending last season, in 2023. After surprisingly making the playoffs last season, it turns out that the worst of it may have been delated a year.

And it has something to do with nearly $70 million in Rams cap spending, or approximately 25% of the 2024 salary cap, on players who aren’t helping the team right now or ever again.

If you thought that Matthew Stafford wanting an extra $5 million was giving Les Snead nightmares, just wait until you see why L.A.’s “$257 million salary cap” is more like $187 million. And it’s difficult to build a complete roster when you can only spend 75-percent of what you’re allowed to spend. The Rams ranked 32nd in spending on defensive tackles, edge rushers, linebackers, and running backs. And it has showed. How did the Rams get here?

Rams dead cap: $28.9 million

The Rams are paying $23.8 million in cap space to Aaron Donald because the team decided to make him the highest-paid non-QB in league history at the time after winning the Super Bowl. With three years left on the deal he signed in 2018, L.A. gave him a new three-year deal and a raise to $31.6 million per season, dramatically more than any other defensive lineman at the time.

You can’t really say that either side did anything wrong here. Donald was free to do as he pleased, including if he wanted to retire, which was a realistic possibility. The Rams knew they’d never regret paying Aaron Donald. And they won’t, his final two seasons solidified that even in his thirties, Donald was a dominant even when surrounded by day three draft picks on the only contracts that L.A. could afford.

It could be argued that the Rams had an opportunity to start the rebuild a year earlier and perhaps they’d be further along now than they currently are if they had. But the three players they re-committed to after the Super Bowl—Donald, Cooper Kupp, Matthew Stafford—had just helped the Rams win the Super Bowl. What would winning the Super Bowl even mean if the team immediately tears it down right after?

$24 million is a lot of money for a player who isn’t on the team, but dead cap is something that most teams have to deal with. The Rams rank 19th in the NFL in dead cap this season, much less than the $76 million that the Broncos are spending in dead cap. The only other significant dead cap hit on the Rams is $3.1 million for Brian Allen.

It seems worse to have $3 million for Allen than to have $23 million for Aaron.

Photo by Ryan Kang/Getty Images

Injured Reserve – 10 players, $34.1 million

The story of the season. Ironically, it’s not even a regular starter who is eating up by far the most cap space here, which is Joe Noteboom. The Rams are paying Noteboom an $11.6 million cap hit because the team basically just had a feeling that he’d be able to replace Andrew Whitworth when he retired in 2022. And $11.6 million is less than what they originally agreed to pay Noteboom.

Darious Williams has a $4.6 million cap hit and is on IR, while several players on their rookie contracts don’t cost a lot but their absence is costly: Steve Avila and Puka Nacua.

The other piece to the puzzle is Tyler Higbee. He’s on PUP, not IR, but the Rams are paying a $12.6 million cap number for Higbee, which is the third-highest cap hit for any tight end in the NFL this season. The Rams extended Higbee with a two-year, $27 million deal before last season.

You must be saying to yourself, “Oh, this must mean that Higbee is one of the best tight ends in the NFL then.”

No, not really. But all of the Rams efforts to replace Higbee with draft picks have failed, so he keeps getting paid on extensions that assume Higbee would make top of the market tight end money as a free agent without ever actually finding out if he would.

Suspended – $7.4 million

Though these suspensions are now over, the Rams did not have their “$4.3 million left tackle” and “$3 million backup QB” in the first two weeks. Interestingly, if Garoppolo had been available on Sunday you’d think that Sean McVay would have been more willing to get Matthew Stafford out of the game to protect him. But it must not have been as meaningless as a preseason game because McVay wasn’t willing to play Stetson Bennett.

Are Rams free agency decisions paying off yet?

The Rams were active in free agency again like it was 2022, signing Jonah Jackson, Darious Williams, Tre White, Colby Parkinson, Kam Curl, and re-signing Kevin Dotson. How do those contracts look through two weeks?

As noted, Williams is on IR and Garoppolo is now finishing his suspension. Obviously in Garoppolo’s case, his absence doesn’t matter. Williams absence certainly does.

But Williams is only the beginning. White’s return to the field after missing most of the last three seasons has not gone as he or the Rams had hoped. White does have a cost-effective contract as he only has a $3.5 million cap hit, but through two games has been a liability in coverage.

Jonah Jackson’s experience has bordered on non-sensical, as the Rams first signed him to a top-of-the-market contract for a guard, then moved him to center just before the season (which would make him an overpay), and by no fault of Jackson the offensive line has been in disarray through two weeks. He’s had to move back to left guard due to Avila’s injury and it could be months before the Rams find any continuity.

Signing the guards and drafting Avila may have all been the right moves, but the end result happens to be that those players aren’t as effective without effective and healthy players around them.

The same story falls back on Matthew Stafford: The Rams are paying him a reasonable $46 million, but their most important player is ineffective without the entire supporting cast. Nacua could be out for months. Kupp left with an ankle injury on Sunday. The offensive line is banged up.

The reality is that the Rams could be fine in a few weeks. The issue is whether or not the Rams will be able to win enough games until then to still be in playoff contention when they are back to normal.

Could the Rams have done anything different?

While the Rams had every right to rebuke Donald and Kupp’s requests to get more money (paying a wide receiver with an injury history as he’s hitting 30 being far more questionable than the Donald deal), they were also arguably the best offensive and defensive players in the league in 2021. Stafford’s contract and contract demands have never been prohibitive or outlandish.

If the Rams have any regrets, it’s being far too confident in Noteboom and too unwilling to lose Tyler Higbee. Really what’s the big deal if you have to replace Higbee? It’s already happening.

Though the Tre White deal might not pay off, it doesn’t hurt the team financially. It’s really more about the Rams needing cheap players to step up, not expensive players to play up to their contracts.

What do the Rams need?

The Rams spend the least amount on linebackers of any team in the NFL, a fact that was supported as a “philosophy” when the team traded Ernest Jones to the Titans. With only $5 million allocated to linebacker, L.A. needs players like Christian Rozeboom and Troy Reeder to start playing way above their pay grade, or find out what they have in Omar Speights.

The Rams also spend the least amount in the NFL on the edge rusher position, only $9.8 million. Jared Verse is doing fine, but for the Rams the concern is, “Is Verse your best pass rusher?” It’s often troubling when a team’s best player at a position is usually there by default. Players like Verse and Byron Young are under a lot of pressure to play beyond their years.

The Rams also spend the least amount in the NFL on defensive tackles, only $7.3 million, and running backs, under $4 million. They’ll need young players on rookie contracts to carry the load there too.

Able to climb out of a 3-6 hole last season to make the playoffs with an unproven roster and a lot of dead cap, can the Rams do it again in 2024? Perhaps. But they’re really like to not have to do that again.