Watson is just one hypothetical. The cap isn't an issue with Watson as even a "first day of the year" trade for Watson SAVES the Rams $2M against the cap. So the cap isn't an issue.
It still results in dead cap money, no matter when the trade is official, both this year and next. And dead money is money that can't be spent on other players.
I can understand the concern that they will "Martz this up". I share that concern. That said, I don't think we have the same Goff we had in 2018 and I don't pretend to know the reason, but the end result is the the judgment is that the Rams seem to be moving on from 2020 Goff.
We haven't, but we haven't seen a lot of what we saw in 2018 that is entirely outside of Goff's control. We have seen serious regression in the OL, and after an offseason to fix it the Rams pretty much decided to stand pat. Instead of fixing the line, McVay tried to adjust the offense around that to mask its weaknesses, but that's like stuffing dirty laundry into the hamper - you may not see it but sooner or later the smell is going to get out. And at critical times, it did. Because of the OL deficiencies, we've seen our play action game suffer, as well as our ability to throw downfield, as either the QB gets sacked or isn't confident in the guys in front of him, not to mention nowhere to step up to when the blocking doesn't hold. And we've seen at times some really, really bad playcalling.
The thing that is so maddening about this is that those of us who want to hold onto Goff for at least one more year will acknowledge his play as suffered and needs to improve. But getting people to realize McVay's neglect of the OL and its effects as well as the lack of scheme innovation and sometimes bad playcalling has had a major affect on Goff's play seems to be more difficult than pulling teeth from a pissed off grizzly bear. That's probably because acknowledging McVay's role in the offensive struggles severely weakens the case for moving on from Goff at the present time. And from McVay himself, I have seen very little in terms of action from him to back up his "I've got to do better" talk.
One thing I feel pretty confident in saying. I don't think McVay or Snead are hellbent to burn bridges with Goff. I think McVay has an exacting and unyielding set of expectations for the QB position and Goff hasn't met those expectations consistently enough such that the org seems ready to move on from Goff.
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree about being hellbent on burning bridges. It's one thing for McVay to say what he said after an emotional playoff loss, but more than a week later for Snead to say what he said makes it really look like they want to twist the knife.
And it's fine for him to have high expectations for the QB, but shouldn't he hold himself to those same expectations? Like I've said above, for all of his repeated sayings of "I've got to do better", I've seen little action from him in the last two seasons that really squares with those words.
I like Stafford, but don't see him as a "splash". Watson would be a "SPLASH"
Watson would be a splash. Stafford would be a belly flop.