Top 3 Offseason Needs: Los Angeles Rams

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Rams43

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It’s gonna be another tricky offseason, isn’t it?

On the one hand they want to ideally retain FA’s that can’t realistically be upgraded.

On the other hand, they have to keep an eye on cap limitations, overall. Thus, several high priced current starters may be vulnerable.

On the 3rd hand, they lack a 2nd rounder in this draft.

Like I said, tricky.

My best guesses?

Joyner extended. A very high priority. No upgrade possible or necessary. Might cost $10 million per, though.
TruJo gone. He won’t sign for a cap friendly price. Replace him via draft or FA.
NRC likely extended. Good enough for now and should be affordable.
Quinn gone. Mostly because of cap, but also because of declining play impact.
Barron 50% likely gone. Salary, plus health issues reduces bang for the buck too much.
Watkins is probably 50-50 to be extended. Hopefully, for $10 million, or less.

Those are the 6 biggie offseason decisions. The lesser ones will sort themselves out. A fool’s errand to speculate on them at this point, anyway.

Don’t be surprised if a NT or edge rusher is the pick at #23.

In fact, I think only a LOT that they really like that falls would prevent one of those 2 position picks. Not very likely, IMO.

I sense that CB might wait until the 3rd round. Why? Snead has been outstanding at finding quality DB’s in mid rounds or later. Plus, our asst coaches in the secondary seem to be exceptional teachers and developers, as well.

A source of comfort is that there will be tons of cap room for replacing overpriced current starters and FA wannabes if Quinn and Barron are offloaded.

The AD contract extension? It will sort itself out over the next 3 seasons. Not gonna worry about it just yet.

Well, my crystal ball is getting dim, now, so I’ll stop climbing out on this limb. Must need new batteries.
 

Riverumbbq

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River
When it comes to free agency, I believe the first truly important decision to be made at the management level is if they really want to jump in with both feet and shoot for the stars in 2018. Does McVay, Snead & Demoff believe they are only a couple acquisitions away from a Super Bowl appearance ? There are some CAP consequences if they do and fail, but probably not so much risk as it not being worth taking the shot. Will it be a slow and steady conservative approach, or will they go for the whole enchilada ? With some $45.mil in available CAP today along with the potential to increase that to a figure closer to $70.mil with a few CAP Casualty cuts, it seems like the right time to strike is here & now to go for the gold. The gamble is how much are they willing stake and what future CAP ramifications they might endure as early as 2019. Re-signing and extending our own guys gets us a CAP reprieve in 2018, but the bill really comes due in 2019 and beyond. Same goes for any outside free agents brought in, year one generally gets us a discount, following that comes the bill. Donald, if extended as we suspect, could bring a 2019 CAP hit in the $24 - 25mil range all by himself. Gurley is likely to receive his 5'th year option money in 2019, and all those long term contracts we sign this off-season will see 2019 as a coming due date. And lets not forget that Goff's big pay day comes only a season after Gurley's. Sure, the league is probably going to give all teams another $10mil. raise in CAP, but that disappears quickly with multiple players making the big bucks. My question comes down to which players will be sacrificed as CAP Casualty cuts in 2019 if we go big in 2018 ? Demoff may be one of the best at managing CAP, but even he may be hard pressed to keep a lid on coming expenditures if we overplay our hand in 2018. jmo.
 

snackdaddy

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Charlie
All I know is, its really nice not going into an offseason saying we're a quarterback away from being a playoff team. We are a playoff team. Honestly, if we retained all our key free agents we don't have many holes if any. Maybe if we want to take it to the next level we could use a legit edge rusher. Might need some depth on the offensive line. Can't rely on remaining injury free again. Other than that its just a matter of young guys getting better and learning from the playoff experience. They already know how to win regular season games.
 

gabriel18

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Sorry Quinn but two decent games a year isn't worth 12 million.
 

Soul Surfer

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Charles Mazyck
I would put ILB, NT and (specifically) CB before I worried about an Offensive Lineman or Edge Rusher.

Provided we sign the free agents we want to keep.
 

Soul Surfer

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the writer is delusional.
Just another half-ass opinion from a guy who is out-of-the-loop who thinks he knows what he's talking about.

There are two dozen guys on here whose opinion I would value before I listened to somebody who tries to keep up with all 32 teams.