Rams' salary-cap challenges, effect on free agency plans

[ROD-BOT]

Rams' salary-cap challenges could have big effect on free agency plans

Rams general manager Les Snead plans to alleviate the team's salary-cap woes by restructuring contracts, but they could lose some veteran players.

www.latimes.com

Rams' salary-cap challenges could have big effect on free agency plans

For the second year in a row, the Rams are preparing for a free-agent exodus of key players on defense — and strategizing about how they might be replaced.

On Monday, when the NFL’s so-called legal tampering period begins 48 hours before the start of free agency, representatives for safety John Johnson, edge rusher Leonard Floyd and cornerback Troy Hill will be fielding offers from suitors positioned to outbid the Rams.

Defensive linemen Morgan Fox and Derek Rivers, linebacker Samson Ebukam, running back Malcolm Brown, tight end Gerald Everett, receiver Josh Reynolds, offensive lineman Austin Blythe and long snapper Jake McQuaide also are pending unrestricted free agents.

Last season, in the days leading up to the NFL’s new league year, Rams defensive tackle Michael Brockers and linebackers Dante Fowler and Cory Littleton agreed to contracts with other teams. Brockers returned to the Rams after his deal with the Baltimore Ravens collapsed. But last year’s departures might have portended a trend for a defense that in 2020 ranked among the NFL’s best under coordinator Brandon Staley, now coach of the Chargers.

Last Wednesday, when the NFL set the salary cap at $182.5 million, the Rams were $33.1 million over the limit — the most of any team — according to overthecap.com.

The Rams’ problematic situation was created, in part, by dead money hits for the release of running back Todd Gurley before last season and the January trade of quarterback Jared Goff for quarterback Matthew Stafford. The NFL, unlike the NBA and Major League Baseball, does not provide a mechanism to exceed the salary cap by allowing teams to pay a luxury tax. All NFL teams must be under the cap by Wednesday at 1 p.m. PDT.

The Rams will try to get under the cap by restructuring contracts of such top-earning players as defensive lineman Aaron Donald, cornerback Jalen Ramsey and receivers Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods. General manager Les Snead and vice president Tony Pastoors also have almost certainly been in restructure discussions with such players as Brockers and offensive linemen Andrew Whitworth and Rob Havenstein, who might otherwise be candidates for release in a year when the cap fell nearly $16 million from 2020 because of revenue losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s evolving. It’s changing. It’s unprecedented,” Snead said of operating in a year when the cap decreased. “This is tougher. So, I think all of us have been willing to somewhat make sacrifices, somewhat think out of the box, that wouldn’t necessarily normally occur in a normal year.”

High-salaried veteran players across the league are similarly vulnerable to release, so this year’s free-agent class is expected to expand daily as teams shed contracts to get under the cap.

The Rams are not expected to be major players in the first wave of free agency, which could be marked by an increase in one-year contracts as players and teams hedge their bets that the cap will increase in 2022 and beyond.

Along with perusing available talent on defense, the Rams could shop for a receiver.

Stafford displayed proven ability to complete longer passes during 12 seasons with the Detroit Lions. While Kupp and Woods are productive mid-range receivers, coach Sean McVay acknowledged after the season that the Rams lacked a legitimate deep threat. The offense produced few of the long plays — “explosives,” as McVay describes them — that characterized the offense in 2017 and 2018.

“When you have to go 12, 15-play drives consistently, your margin for error is so small,” McVay said. “The level of competition is just so great that you have to be able to find ways to continuously create explosives, give yourself a little bit of margin for error, that it’s not always taking that many plays to produce points in this league.”

Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones, who played with Stafford in Detroit last season, are among receivers in a free-agent class that includes former USC star JuJu Smith-Schuster, former Ram Sammy Watkins, T.Y. Hilton, A.J. Green, Will Fuller and DeSean Jackson among others. But the Rams are not expected to spend big at the position.

Blythe, who was a pending unrestricted free agent in 2020, signed a one-year contract before last season and subsequently solidified his opportunity for a long-term deal with solid play. If Blythe moves on, the Rams might turn to fourth-year pro Brian Allen, who was sidelined nearly all last season because of a 2019 knee injury. Or the Rams could sign a free agent or draft a center.

But every scenario has unknowns, Snead said.

“The key that what we don’t necessarily know with Brian is … how will he play post-injury?” Snead said, adding, “Because it’s such a nuanced position of almost being the second QB on the field, it’s hard just to project a rookie can do it.

“It’s even hard just to project a player that may be with another NFL team can do it just because they will still have to learn our system and still at that point have to quickly process football within our system.”

 

[CGI_Ram]

What you need to know about NFL free agency and the reduced salary cap

With the COVID-19 pandemic cutting into NFL revenue, the salary cap took a big hit this year. Here's how it will affect NFL free agency this week.

www.latimes.com

What you need to know about NFL free agency and the reduced salary cap

The NFL’s 2021 business year begins Wednesday, and the marketplace will be filled with high-profile free agents as teams have to shed costs in the wake of a bizarre season of fake crowd noise and cardboard fans.

Whereas a year ago everyone was focused on where Tom Brady would land, this year is more about droves of sub-superstars who nonetheless could make a big difference for teams. The legal tampering period begins Monday, meaning teams and players can start lining up deals.

Tampa Bay pass rusher Shaq Barrett figures to hit the open market, as do Green Bay running back Aaron Jones, Detroit receiver Kenny Golladay, Pittsburgh receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, Chargers tight end Hunter Henry and San Francisco tackle Trent Williams.

Some questions and answers for what’s to come:

The salary cap is set at $182.5 million. Why is that significant?

Although that’s still gobs of money to cover player salaries — more than was allotted three years ago — it’s a significant step down from last year’s $198.2 million. It’s only the second time since the cap was put in place in 1994 that the number has gone down from the previous year. The only other time was in 2011, in the wake of the lockout, when it was essentially stagnant.

So what does it mean when the cap goes down?

A lot of teams have to do some serious belt-tightening to get in compliance, so players who might otherwise be signed or re-signed are flushed into the free-agent marketplace. So the pool of available talent is unusually deep.

Was this expected?

Yes and no. Everybody knew the cap was going to go down this year in light of how much revenue the NFL lost because of the pandemic. A season without spectators comes at a price. But salary-cap planning is done years in advance. Players are signed to multiyear deals, not multimonth deals, and no one could have predicted a season without fans. When they were drawing up these deals before the pandemic, teams were anticipating a 2021 salary cap of closer to $210 million, and a nearly $30-million swing is gigantic.

With all those good players available, what now?

This is where it gets really interesting. Like most years, the bad teams are the ones with the most money to spend, and, generally speaking, are most willing to part with players and reboot. The teams with the most available money are the Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets and New England Patriots, who were 7-9 in their first season after Brady. So some really good free agents could be faced with a decision: Do I sign a more lucrative, longer-term deal with a bad team, or take a financial haircut to sign a one-year deal with a good team, having a better chance of winning a ring before re-setting my value for next season?

Does this situation favor the bold teams?

It could. Most teams are reluctant to make dramatic changes, and when coaches have players who know their system, their instinct is to focus on continuity. Yet say you have a guard, a good player who’s due to make $11 million this year. All of a sudden, you see the marketplace flooded with good offensive linemen. More passive teams might say, “We’ve got our guy and we’re happy with him. We might as well stay put.” But a team that’s less risk-averse might say, “We can replace this guy, if only for a year or two, at say $7 million for next year. Then we can push forward the difference and leave ourselves in better cap position for 2022.”

What’s the upside of a one-year deal for a player?

If a player settles for less than he thinks he’s worth, he can re-enter the market in 2022, when theoretically talent is more scarce and available money is more abundant. He could play well enough this season to improve his value. Then again, he’ll have one more year of wear and tear on his body.

If good players are available on the cheap, why don’t teams just cobble together a roster filled with guys on one-year deals?

When it comes to those short-term fixes, a little goes a long way. There are 22 starters, so if you swap out two players that’s almost 10% of your starting lineup. A club that relies too much on those Band-Aids takes on a much greater risk of negatively affecting the culture and continuity of the team, and increases the likelihood of mental mistakes with so much roster turnover.

How quickly will panic set in among free agents if they aren’t snapped up right away?

Think of musical chairs, suddenly with more participants and fewer chairs. After the first wave of signings, we could see some quality players signing below-market deals with teams they might not consider in a typical year.

Will next year’s cap bounce back in a big way?

That’s the bet, but there’s no guarantee. No one can say for sure what games will look like. Fans will be back, but in anything close to pre-pandemic numbers?

With less money available, what does that mean for draft picks?

The tighter the cap is, the more valuable draft picks are. The easiest way to get quality players on the cheap is through the draft. So in the coming days and weeks we might see an increase of trades that involve draft picks. Some of those might seem as if the team trading a quality player doesn’t get quite as much in draft capital as you would expect.

Are draft picks more of a risk this year?

They could be. This was a bizarre and incomplete college football season. No combine. Zoom interviews. NFL teams don’t have a complete picture of the prospects, at least not as complete as in a normal year.

 

[CGI_Ram]

Rams free-agency preview: Plan includes thinking big

They seek a deep target for new quarterback Matthew Stafford and defensive stability but first must trim a league-high $33.1 million in salaries to get under the cap

www.dailybulletin.com

Rams free-agency preview: Plan includes thinking big

Rams general manager Les Snead calls it “the method to the madness,” an acknowledgment that the team’s free-agent strategy sometimes needs explaining.

The method and madness have mostly worked for the Rams in the past few years, helping to keep the roster deep enough in talent to extend coach Sean McVay’s run of winning seasons to four in 2020.

But can it provide what the team needs for 2021, when the Rams are desperate to take the big step back to the Super Bowl, which will be played on home turf at SoFi Stadium in February?

The Rams go into the start of free-agent negotiations Monday and signings Wednesday hoping to avoid a defensive exodus led by Leonard Floyd and John Johnson, add a deep-threat wide receiver to exploit new quarterback Matthew Stafford’s strong arm, and keep an improving offensive line intact.

But this free-agent season could resemble the past three, when the Rams lost more prominent players than they added. Chalk that up to their own salary-cap squeeze, which saw them go into the weekend having to trim a league-high $33.1 million in salaries to get under the limit by Wednesday. And blame the league-wide, pandemic-era revenue shortfall, which resulted in a per-team cap set at $182.5 million, down $15.7 million from 2020 and down about $25 million from teams’ long-term budgets.

Snead, vice president of football and business administration (and chief contract negotiator) Tony Pastoors and coach Sean McVay will be making moves in the next week in a league environment expected to see payroll cuts create more free agents, the glut depressing the price for “middle-class” free agents, and teams and players agreeing to more short-term contracts and fewer record-setting deals than normal.

But mostly, attribute modest expectations for the Rams this week to strategy.

Since 2017, when they made the splashy signings of wide receiver Robert Woods (five years, $34 million) and left tackle Andrew Whitworth (three years, $33.75 million), their most notable free-agent acquisitions have been the relatively cheap, one- and two-year signings of defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, linebacker Clay Matthews, safety Eric Weddle and Floyd. The first three served as one-season stopgaps, and now Floyd could leave after one excellent season.

In that span, when it comes to free agents seeking long, rich contracts, the Rams have been more willing to let them go than re-sign or acquire them.

The money they don’t spend on free agents, they’ve spent on contract extensions for core players: defensive tackle Aaron Donald, cornerback Jalen Ramsey, receivers Wood and Cooper Kupp, tight end Tyler Higbee, and, less successfully, running back Todd Gurley and quarterback Jared Goff.

Losing big free agents brings compensatory draft picks, such as the third-rounders they used to select tackle Bobby Evans in 2019 and safety Terrell Burgess in 2020 and the third- and fourth-rounders they’ve been awarded in the April 29-May 1 draft for losing linebackers Dante Fowler and Cory Littleton a year ago. The compensatory picks help to make up for the Rams’ proclivity for trading away first-rounders for proven talent like Ramsey and Stafford.

Snead points out that the Patriots, Steelers and Ravens have succeeded with a similar hoarding of compensatory picks.

“I call it the model, the method to the madness,” said Snead, who said it requires a “special coaching staff” and effective scouting to pull it off.

Whom the Rams might try to acquire this week depends in part on whether they can re-sign Floyd, 28, after a career-best 10 1/2-sack season. Second-year outside linebacker Terrell Lewis’ injury history makes him an uncertain replacement.

It also depends on whether the Rams re-sign center Austin Blythe. Snead hinted at Blythe’s value by saying it’s hard to trust “such a nuanced position” to a rookie or new signing.

The most dramatic acquisition the Rams could make is a deep-threat wide receiver.

Snead noted Wednesday that this can mean “speed and throwing the ball deep,” but it also could mean finding a receiver who’s “tall and big and he can go get a rebound and you can throw the ball up.”

Coincidence? Free-agent receivers who meet Snead’s “tall and big” description include two of Stafford’s targets in Detroit: Marvin Jones, who is 6-foot-2, 199 pounds and was the NFL leader with 18.0 yards per catch in 2017, and Kenny Golladay, the 6-foot-4, 214-pound league leader in receiving touchdowns with 11 in 2019.

Free-agent receivers fitting the template — tall, big, explosive — also include Rashard Higgins (Browns), Breshad Perriman (Jets), A.J. Green (Bengals) and Kenny Stills (Bills), each of whom, like Jones and Golladay, was top-10 in average yards before catch in one of the past three seasons.

What can they afford?

With the whole league under more payroll-cap constraints than usual, McVay said in February “it’s going to be absolute bananas” seeing what teams do.

For the Rams, at least, there’s method to those bananas.

Here are the Rams’ free agents, unrestricted and restricted (marked with asterisks):

Offense: Blythe, TE Gerald Everett, WR Josh Reynolds, RB Malcolm Brown, QB Blake Bortles, TE Johnny Mundt*.

Defense: Floyd, Johnson, CB Troy Hill, DE Morgan Fox, OLB Samson Ebukam, OLB Derek Rivers, CB Darious Williams*.

Special teams: LS Jake McQuaide.

 

[CGI_Ram]

It also depends on whether the Rams re-sign center Austin Blythe. Snead hinted at Blythe’s value by saying it’s hard to trust “such a nuanced position” to a rookie or new signing.

We might resign Blythe. That door certainly is open.

We‘ve chatted a lot here about a new center. This seems to indicate Blythe or someone with experience.

With the whole league under more payroll-cap constraints than usual, McVay said in February “it’s going to be absolute bananas” seeing what teams do.

I think it’s possible we are active only late in FA. That will be a player pool different from any year in recent memory.

 

[RhodyRams]

I dont see why teams cant navigate around the cap, with full knowledge that when TV deals are renewed the cap will go up, and set salaries accordingly.


It's like setting up a budget. I know in the summer months when my work is at it's highest, there will be more expendable cash to play with, and less so in the winter months

 

[bubbaramfan]

So what does the league do to a team that doesn't get under the cap? Goodell going to tell Snead which players he has to cut?

I'm as confused as a blind lesbian in a fish market.

 

[Ramstien]

So what does the league do to a team that doesn't get under the cap? Goodell going to tell Snead which players he has to cut?

I'm as confused as a blind lesbian in a fish market.

If I'm not mistaken they take draft picks from them.

 

[CGI_Ram]

I dont see why teams cant navigate around the cap, with full knowledge that when TV deals are renewed the cap will go up, and set salaries accordingly.

I assume you mean backload contracts? No question some of that is going on.

The downside... this is a pre-buying strategy and commits funds in advance. Tying your hands a little when corrections are needed.

 

[ottoman89]

I assume you mean backload contracts? No question some of that is going on.

The downside... this is a pre-buying strategy and commits funds in advance. Tying your hands a little when corrections are needed.

The only good news about it is we know the cap will go up a bunch, and next off-season we should have next to no dead money IIRC.

 

[Mojo Ram]

Snead points out that the Patriots, and Ravens have succeeded with a similar hoarding of compensatory picks.

“I call it the model, the method to the madness,” said Snead, who said it requires a “special coaching staff” and effective scouting to pull it off.

Bingo. This is the crux of what his critics don't seem to understand. They simply run with the reckless narrative and claim that the car crash is coming. The evidence since 2017 and heading into 2021 with a team poised for another playoff run says otherwise.

 

[RhodyRams]

I assume you mean backload contracts? No question some of that is going on.

The downside... this is a pre-buying strategy and commits funds in advance. Tying your hands a little when corrections are needed.

Yeah a bit hungover this morning when posted


Realized the error of my ways and came back to admit it lol

 

[Corbin]

Any word on restructures or cap? We wayyyyy below

 

[Riverumbbq]

Any word on restructures or cap? We wayyyyy below

I doubt they re-sign Floyd or tender Williams if they hadn't met the NFL CAP threshold, the Rams just don't like releasing info, likely we know a lot more on Wednesday at noon.

 

[Corbin]

I doubt they re-sign Floyd or tender Williams if they hadn't met the NFL CAP threshold, the Rams just don't like releasing info, likely we know a lot more on Wednesday at noon.

That’s why it’s such a shock to me they haven’t released any info. I don’t know what the strategy be would be? Other teams not accounting for us in a bidding war for our own people/FA’s?

 

[Riverumbbq]

That’s why it’s such a shock to me they haven’t released any info. I don’t know what the strategy be would be? Other teams not accounting for us in a bidding war for our own people/FA’s?

You'd think they could at least keep us informed here at ROD, ... I mean, who's going to alert the media from here ?