Rams & Other Teams Find Themselves in Salary-Cap Hell

[BonifayRam]

Rams & Other NFL Teams That Find Themselves in Salary-Cap Hell

BY Mike Tanier / February 18, 2020

Welcome to the Salary Cap Inferno, the bad place where teams are punished for their financial sins of the past.

NFL free agency is fast approaching, and while some teams are getting ready for a spending spree, others find themselves in financial H-E Double Hockey Sticks. Instead of bidding on big names and hoping to get better, they'll be forced to let their own free agents go, release or restructure the contracts of some of their starters and hope the austerity program doesn't make them significantly worse.

There's more to the Cap Inferno than just being low on cap space. Teams that have lots of budding superstars under contract, are a heartbeat away from the Super Bowl or know they are preparing for a full-scale rebuild don't qualify. The rings of the Cap Inferno are reserved for teams guilty of overspending, bad planning, wishful thinking or living the high life for too long, plus some minor venial sins like inking a few too many regrettable contracts.

So abandon all hope, ye who enter here: It's time for a truly hellish journey through the realm of salary-cap nightmares.

Ring of the Cap Inferno: Los Angeles Rams (Cap space: $14.7 million)

Mortal sin: Building a tiny Super Bowl window
The Rams assembled their roster and their budget around winning in 2018 or 2019, and they almost pulled it off. But they now must pay the price. Their ledger is top-heavy with massive cap numbers, a few of which are worth the money (Aaron Donald at $25 million), many of which are not (Jared Goff at $36 million), and at least one of which needs to be renegotiated pronto (Jalen Ramsey at $13.7 million in the final year of his rookie contract). The Rams also traded away their first-round picks until 2022 for Ramsey, leaving them with neither an easy way to get better nor an exit strategy for moving on from pricey veterans.

Venial sin: Seduced by rushing stats.
The Rams are reportedly working on ways to extract themselves from the clutches of the extension they gave Todd Gurley II in 2018, which runs through 2023 and will cost $17.25 million in cap space this season for near-replacement-level running back performance.

Penance:
The Rams are sentenced to tread water at the wild-card level for the foreseeable future. They may be forced to spend a chunk of their little available cap space this offseason retaining 38-year-old left tackle Andrew Whitworth so the whole offensive line doesn't crumble, taking Goff and Gurley with it. Deals like that will only result in the roster getting older and more expensive before it gets better. But the Rams have so much invested in Goff and others and so little draft capital that they couldn't rebuild even if they wanted to.
View: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2876758-rams-bears-jaguars-and-other-nfl-teams-that-find-themselves-in-salary-cap-hell
Click above to read more of other teams mentioned in this article.

 

[Tano]

I am going with the hope that the new CBA will up the CAP significantly and that the Rams knew that they would be in CAP hell for only 1 year.

I know some people >>FLV will say that the CAP went down in 2010 after the CBA but that was different imho. They locked out players for awhile and finally they agreed with the lowered cap with the offset being lowered first 4 year salaries. I felt that CBA really hurt the players. This time around it appears that the Owners and players both need each other and that the negotiations are going much more cordial this time with the only major sticking point appearing to be the 17th game. I say the CAP is going up this time with a higher revenue sharing with no offset of lowering rookie salaries this time.

And they really need to get off Goff's salary. He earned it imo. QB salaries are so outrageous that his will be middle of the pack in a few years.

 

[Corbin]

Tired of these human excrement articles. I’ll bet anybody any person ROD dollars bet of the max 2k that Gurley next year has over 1 k rushing yards, 13 TD’s +, and 300 yards receiving plus.

Exception is injury for the season or trade.

McVay has a fire under his ass to get this offense back in order and we all know how this offense works, that is through run blocking and running the ball to set up everything. He knows this, and nothings wrong with TG’s fucking knee to the point he’s going to not be effective physically.


McVay knows he messed up limiting TG’s ability to take over a game by being to overly cautious.

Gurantee that was the root cause of TG’s sour attitude compared to the previous few years. Remember how he was in the middle of the middle school offense days? Not happy outwardly especially in the media.

p.s. Lindsey Thiry is a stupid dramatic bitch.
She probably wanted TG to dick her down and TG refused and she doesn’t take rejection well.

 

[Merlin]

The Rams are sentenced to tread water at the wild-card level for the foreseeable future.

So fucking tired of these clowns that overvalue cap space and don't have the time or knowledge of the game to actually look at a roster. Because seeing the roster quality is part of the equation if you're going to proclaim a team "treading water at the wildcard level for the foreseeable future."

Man if only we had 50M of cap space and zero players locked up long term. That would be amazing!!!! Right???

 

[kurtfaulk]

.

As i was reading it i thought to myself some shitty website came up with this (not a broad reach as most of them are atrocious) and lo and behold it's from the bleacher report.

.

 

[oldnotdead]

So fucking tired of these clowns that overvalue cap space and don't have the time or knowledge of the game to actually look at a roster. Because seeing the roster quality is part of the equation if you're going to proclaim a team "treading water at the wildcard level for the foreseeable future."

Man if only we had 50M of cap space and zero players locked up long term. That would be amazing!!!! Right???

I totally fucking agree! Geez, they look at last year's end of the year cap and freak out. I've shown in as simplistic terms as possible that the Rams are not in cap hell. Not even close. They have the money to sign Fowler to a market value ($15-$17M) contract and sign Littleton to a market value contract as well. If both want more than it's next man up but not because of cap hell.

This roster is as close to being built as it can be with the guys they got. I totally agree with your last sentence. Couldn't put it better.

 

[OldSchool]

Oh look another bad bleacher report article

 

[BonifayRam]

So fucking tired of these clowns that overvalue cap space and don't have the time or knowledge of the game to actually look at a roster. Because seeing the roster quality is part of the equation if you're going to proclaim a team "treading water at the wildcard level for the foreseeable future."

Man if only we had 50M of cap space and zero players locked up long term. That would be amazing!!!! Right???

Question for you.......could it be the writer did consider the Rams signed roster & the players that were tying up great amounts of Salary Cap?

 

[Akrasian]

Geez, they look at last year's end of the year cap and freak out. I've shown in as simplistic terms as possible that the Rams are not in cap hell. Not even close. They have the money to sign Fowler to a market value ($15-$17M) contract and sign Littleton to a market value contract as well. If both want more than it's next man up but not because of cap hell.

Are the Rams in cap hell? No. However, they are in a position where they can not sign everybody they would like to in the real world.

Before cutting players (which if the players are any good hurts the team's depth at the very least) or restructuring contracts (which they will do some, but which pushes the problem into future years) Spotrac has the Rams' 2020 cap room for their top 51 players at a tad over $23 million. Note, however, that does not include such things as signing their draft class (around $4.3 million), bonuses for signing UDFAs (indeterminate right now, but more than zero), practice squad salaries (about $1.4 million minimum) plus keeping some money to sign injury replacements during the season (realistically, at least $3 million or so). So that's close to $9 million of their cap space spent for those things. So that leaves about $14 million, before cutting and restructuring.

Now, Fowler could be signed with a big signing bonus but low salary for 2020 - say a 5 year $80 million contract ($16 million per) with a $30 million signing bonus so $6 million per year on the bonus, and say $1 million salary - so he would only be taking half of the cap space. Lets say Littleton only takes $6 million of the cap space with both Fowler and Littleton having much bigger cap hits in future years, so that leaves the Rams all of $1 million. Of course, they still need a backup QB unless they go with a rookie. Oh, and that means they are going with a LT already on the roster. And a Brockers replacement already on the roster. And backup safeties either rookies or already on the roster. And a rookie kicker. etc etc. But it could be done, by pushing money into future years and hoping everybody works out, and that there aren't any key players injured, etc etc. And hoping that key players resign for relatively little.

Or the Rams can let an expensive player go they would rather keep, or push a bunch of money into future years.

So yes, if the Rams walk the tight rope they can do okay, but the safety margin is small thanks to signing a number of market-leading contracts and trading away a whole bunch of picks. It's not a cap apocalypse, but it IS a significant problem that can't just be shrugged away.

 

[Mojo Ram]

 

[CGI_Ram]

I have always liked this about Kevin Demoff, as I believe this philosophy comes from him.

We always feel tight, but...there are levers for relief if needed, even if not preferred, and never tied too long to anything. Not exactly heavy front loading deals, but not pushing too much late either.

He also seems to overlap deals, nicely. Avoiding too many of the same decisions in one off season.

 

[TexasRam]

Yea ok.

In reality we could adjust a few contracts if needed to get us close to around league average this year of $43M in cap space. Some trade considerations as well.

But there is not a huge need to, we have our star players under contract and only have a few legit holes to fill which can be done in the draft or FA if we play our cards right.

This type of chicken little article is par with the course of offseason click bait.

 

[jrry32]

Exactly. People who think we're in cap hell see the cap as existing within a single year. But the cap is fluid because of the rollover rules. We have the ability to shift money from year to year and have often been purposefully parking money in certain years with our extensions. It's all accounting tricks. If we really wanted to and needed to open space, we could do so by shifting money to future years. I imagine we might do that with a bit of money this year. The 30% rule makes it a tad more challenging than it normally would be.

 

[fearsomefour]

Spags era was cap hell.
I remember (I think accurately) one year the Rams has the least cap room in the league and the oldest roster. That is fine if you’re in contention. Not ok winning four games a year.

 

[Merlin]

Question for you.......could it be the writer did consider the Rams signed roster & the players that were tying up great amounts of Salary Cap?

If the writer did look at the roster then he missed a lot. Lot of pieces being overlooked and undervalued for him to see this team as anything other than a contender. But for the most part these media types don't do their homework so I'd be surprised if he did do a deep dive of the roster.

Most of these guys see 9-7. They don't stop to consider the Rams going toe to toe with two playoff teams in the league's best division. They don't consider 9 wins with a midseason rebuild of the secondary or that 9 wins with our OL in our division and difficulty of schedule demonstrated how good our staff is. The Rams' top players like AD, Ramsey, Kupp, Gurley, Goff are disregarded. These are not excuses but things you need to consider if you're going to predict a team's ability to win the next season.

So yeah, I'm not of the mind that giving these guys the benefit of the doubt is the way to go my man.

 

[Riverumbbq]

If the writer did look at the roster then he missed a lot. Lot of pieces being overlooked and undervalued for him to see this team as anything other than a contender. But for the most part these media types don't do their homework so I'd be surprised if he did do a deep dive of the roster.

Most of these guys see 9-7. They don't stop to consider the Rams going toe to toe with two playoff teams in the league's best division. They don't consider 9 wins with a midseason rebuild of the secondary or that 9 wins with our OL in our division and difficulty of schedule demonstrated how good our staff is. The Rams' top players like AD, Ramsey, Kupp, Gurley, Goff are disregarded. These are not excuses but things you need to consider if you're going to predict a team's ability to win the next season.

So yeah, I'm not of the mind that giving these guys the benefit of the doubt is the way to go my man.

On the other hand, the writer may wonder about our future direction with players like Whitworth, Brockers, Fowler, Littleton, Blythe, Zuerlein & Christian being potentially lost to free agency, the same questions many fans here are curious about.
We don't have to appreciate the author's click-bait writing style or the tabloid yellow journalism he employs, but the underlying fundamental questions remain. His paragraph on penance does ring somewhat true, which begs the question of whether the Rams will go all in or will we be comfortable using 2020 as more of a developmental season for filling in for lost veterans with younger draftees ? IMO, it's bad timing as i'm sure the Rams would prefer to be all in as we open Kroenke's football palace, there rightfully should be some additional pressure on Snead, Demoff & McVay to deliver something other than 'treading water', so how we use our limited assets this off-season is likely to be viewed under a microscope by fans and the media.
jmo.

 

[Merlin]

On the other hand, the writer may wonder about our future direction with players like Whitworth, Brockers, Fowler, Littleton, Blythe, Zuerlein & Christian being potentially lost to free agency, the same questions many fans here are curious about.

You can do that with every team. Every team has holes. Every team has guys heading to FA they probably aren't going to want to pay, and very hard decisions to make. Certainly the "contenders" do.

The gist of that article is that the Rams blew their wad on bad contracts and reduced their window to "treading water at the wildcard" level. I emphatically disagree with that.

The Rams have one of the best head coaches in the league. They have some elite core players among the best in the league at their positions. They have good depth at many positions. Plenty of role player types. Have they been too free with their picks to "take shots?" Yes. But that doesn't mean they're reduced to a wildcard team that BS is reserved for new fans who don't understand this league.

It's just like the "Rams gave up their future to draft Jared Goff" media takes. Absolutely asinine. There's a certain level Snead is going to have to reach on this roster with some of the positions. He's got FA coming and the draft to address the weakest parts of this roster. But it is not insurmountable by any measure IMO. Rams will be back in business in 2020 mark my words.

 

[Riverumbbq]

You can do that with every team. Every team has holes. Every team has guys heading to FA they probably aren't going to want to pay, and very hard decisions to make. Certainly the "contenders" do.

Perhaps so, but not always with so many relevant starters as the Rams are potentially losing this season. A limited CAP with Fowler, Littleton, Whitworth & Brockers possibly being lost will have an impact. How deep into the restructure business the Rams choose to go in retaining them or replacing them with outside free agents will also have an immediate and future impact on the team.

 

[Merlin]

Perhaps so, but not always with so many relevant starters as the Rams are potentially losing this season. A limited CAP with Fowler, Littleton, Whitworth & Brockers possibly being lost will have an impact. How deep into the restructure business the Rams choose to go in retaining them or replacing them with outside free agents will also have an immediate and future impact on the team.

Bottom line here is I am tired of the hand wringing and stupidity around the cap. Way too many people acting like big cap space is some amazing thing. Rams have enough room to maneuver and fix their holes, question is will they hit the choices. Acting like they're a fucking wildcard team treading water pisses me off. Anyone who agrees, so be it, not sweating that. Just think it's way overdone with the hand wringing around it and that caters to the morons in the media.