Are the Rams destined to have the same fate as the 49ers?

Rams young core will be up for a big payday in the future

The San Francisco 49ers are in quite the pickle at the moment. Behind the scenes Brock Purdy’s contract is still looming with both sides far apart in negotiations and at least eight starters from last season have left or been traded to other teams. How did they get to this point in the offseason?

Like the Los Angeles Rams current roster configuration, San Francisco has built their team through the draft and have hit on a number of late round gems. Now many of those players who have been developed and have played well in their careers are up for new contracts and unfortunately for the 49ers the NFL cap space makes it difficult to maintain their talent. Purdy makes it especially difficult as he will eat a large majority of the cap space with what will likely be a $45+ million contract awarded to him this season.

The Rams are in the infancy of the same situation. After hitting on players like Puka Nacua, Kobie Turner, Kyren Williams, and Jared Verse, LA will be destined to have the same fate as the 49ers. If Nacua continues to perform as top-three wide receiver he will likely get a Justin Jefferson-type deal that makes him one of the highest paid at the position. Thanks to the Cleveland Browns making Myles Garrett the highest paid non-quarterback player in the NFL, Jared Verse could also be a huge cap-hit as well.

And that’s before the quarterback position is addressed. As long as Matthew Stafford is on the depth chart and healthy the likelihood of getting far enough in the draft order to get a QB of the future in the first round is highly unlikely. That means they will have to mortgage their future to move up in the draft or attempt the least likely scenario and find a late round gem. Their last option could be making a trade for one of the young quarterbacks on a roster already with the drawback of having to pay them in three to four years when they are no longer on their rookie scale contract.

“We would probably approach ASAP,” was Les Snead’s response to the future of the quarterback position, “I do think the part of the equation that’s the hardest of that equation is, it’s one thing to identify a QB its another to actually be able to acquire him, but let’s say we did and that person could learn under Matthew. That’s probably only beneficial.”

The hope would be to continue to hit on draft picks and supplement losses with developmental pieces. The 49ers have done a decent job at doing just that and despite their roster losing a lot of its talent they still have the sixth-best odds to win the Super Bowl according to Fan Duel Sportsbook.

The Rams Super Bowl window is now. Stafford is coming back to LA on a team-friendly deal that opened the possibility to take some risk in free agency and the rookies that have excelled in the last few years are all still on budget-friendly contracts. There will come a time those rookies will be in for a big payday, however. How the Rams handle that moment will be a discussion for another time but it could very well become the same situation the 49ers are currently in.