Nope on all three. Stokes is injury prone and hasn't been productive. Melifonwu and Okudah are busts.
Which FA cornerbacks would you want?
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Spotrac has $58M ... OTC has $46M ... but, they both agree that's with just 40 players currently under contract.
So, whichever site is correct, you need to deduct another $9-$10M to get to the 51 player minimum.
Then there's the $ set aside to cover the Draft Class, which would be higher with two first round picks.
On the plus side ... I can be optimistic! ... cutting Darious Williams would create $7.5M of 2026 cap space; and extending Parkinson (entering the final year of his contract, and carries a $9M cap) should reduce his cap-hit.
Regarding Jaylen Watkins and Alontae Taylor. I like them both but don't you guys think, on the open market, they will command between $16M-$20M in Average Annual Value?
I think the difference is Spotrac is projecting the cap to be $12M higher than what OTC is projecting.
By big spending I meant like 20-25M/year.
If one of these FA CBs are in the 15M range, I’m probably in. I’d rather upgrade the spot at 12-16M than spend 10M+ on Durant & Forbes.
They just need to be smart spending money. Like they were with Landman, Poona and Curl signings last two years. Unlike how they were with wasteful Tutu, White, JJ signings last two years.
Sorry, I meant that for free agency as a whole (Monday).
Better to spread that money around….and where needed, use for extensions.
El Chapo Jr
Legend
Could be,
No I definitely agree about the players making a difference for sure but I would think that having better defensive players should lead to making the scheme more versatile vs playing a lot of zone like we do now. I'd be curious to see if Shula would become more creative if so. My only reservation there is I feel like he wasn't that creative on his scheme. McVay is the one coach on our staff I'd never worry about. He's as top notch as you'll ever find.
If they can bring in a quality CB, then draft two guys. One early, one mid rounder. Then get Lake back to safety.
Just looking at projections which of course aren't always right sometimes low sometimes high and contracts can be manipulated as we know to have a low or high first year and it'll vary from year to year.
Alonte Taylor projected for $11 million
Most of the vet swing Tackles I see are $2-4 million
Most of the Safeties I've seen are $5-8 million (Curl they say is $10 million who knows)
Our draft class adding in another 3rd rounder in case Scheelhaase gets the Browns job is a top 51 cap hit of about $9.25 million (taking their cap hit and subtracting out the vet minimum they replace.
So draft class and 3 vet free agent signings total lets say $35 million. That's before any players extended out of our current estimate of $56 million. Room enough to go up on that CB say what another 5-8 million? So if we do that we're at about $16 million for extensions which should be fine.
Looks like what I'm suggesting is possible.
First-off, I really do not know. I also realize that Average Annual Value can be very miss-leading.
Still looking at the top-paid CBs by AAV (per Over-the-Cap) ... Paulson Adebo, Byron Murphy, Christian Benford, Deommodore Lenoir, Zyon McCollum and D.J. Reed are all between $16M-$18M in AAV.
Personally, I think Alontae Taylor is better than most of those guys ... $11M seems low to me.
We have the money. I'd pay it for Watson. I wouldn't for Taylor. He wasn't good in coverage this year or last year.
I may be wrong about this, but it sure seems like the top of the market CBs in free agency the past few years have not turned out well at all for the buyer. I’m not sure what to make of that - it’s probably a bit random and not a concern for buyers going forward. Still, at the least, it’s interesting.
I agree that the Rams could find the cap space for 2026 but I would question the impact such a signing would have on the robust group of in-house free agents over the next two off-seasons.
By-the-way, was looking at 2026 cap hits and contracts earlier today. Dotson and Parkinson have a combined 2026 cap hit of $26.5M but will be in the final year of their contracts. Both are coming-off strong seasons.
Rams could extend one or both players and actually reduce their 2026 cap numbers. Just a thought.
You question the impact a good starting CB would have? I don't. I watched our secondary get shredded over the second half of the year and during the playoffs. We need a good CB in the worst way. We have plenty of cap room and a QB nearing retirement. We absolutely should be spending that money to make a run at the Super Bowl next year.
I thought I'd read/been told he was good this year. Will move on from him then.