Every time the Rams swing big in a trade, the same warning starts humming in the background: this is the move that will eventually catch up to them. It happened after the team went after Jalen Ramsey, Matthew Stafford and Von Miller. It’s happening again now after Los Angeles traded first-round picks for cornerback Trent McDuffie and Myles Garrett.
But the Rams have already lived through the version of this story that was supposed to end badly, and it didn’t.
The Stafford-Ramsey-Miller push ended with a Super Bowl, and the ugly season that followed in 2022 had more to do with injuries than some fatal flaw in the way the roster was built. That year, Los Angeles set the record for adjusted games lost on the offensive line, a kind of damage that can wreck almost any team. The 2020 Philadelphia Eagles held the previous mark and finished 4-11-1.
The Rams were also missing Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald for much of that season because of injuries. At the bye, they were 3-3.
From there, they lost nine of their final 11 games. Still, the floor never completely collapsed, and the team rebounded to make the playoffs.
Yes, the Rams absorbed $73 million in dead money. That mattered.
But it wasn’t the end of the line, because the front office answered with a draft class that helped change the whole mood around the franchise. In the 2023 NFL Draft, Los Angeles hit on Kobie Turner, Byron Young and Puka Nacua, and that quick turnaround softened the blow of the cap pain.
That doesn’t mean the Rams should be expected to pull off another class like that one. It does mean the current setup looks a lot healthier than the one they were staring at heading into 2023.
Right now, the Rams are projected to have around $78 million in cap space entering the 2027 offseason, which is tied for fifth-most in the NFL behind the New York Jets, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons and Arizona Cardinals, all of whom are in rebuilds. By 2028, that number is slated to be $179.5 million.
Those figures will move as the roster gets filled out, but the broader picture is clear: this is a healthy cap situation, not a team trapped under its own spending. When the Rams had the chance to keep kicking the problem down the road, the way the New Orleans Saints did, they chose to pay it off immediately.
That approach is about to be tested by the next wave of contract decisions. Over the next two years, the Rams will have $257 million in total cap space, but they also have to figure out what comes next for Byron Young, Steve Avila, Kevin Dotson, Puka Nacua, Kobie Turner and Warren McClendon.
The Rams already have some answers lined up. Josaiah Stewart is positioned as the succession plan for Young, while Keagen Trost is the fallback for McClendon.
That doesn’t guarantee either player is gone, but Young looks unlikely to come back at his price. If Los Angeles keeps McClendon, that would probably mean moving on from Alaric Jackson, who has an out in his contract.
The bigger number looms over the group of Nacua, Turner, Dotson and Avila. Spotrac’s Market Value system pegs those four at $105.5 million per year. The Rams can play with the structure of the deals, front-loading some and back-loading others, but that’s the level of money they’re likely going to need to reserve.
It’s also part of why the Rams drafted Ty Simpson. One of the best cap advantages in football is having a rookie quarterback, and Los Angeles has spent the past stretch with a veteran in Stafford while much of the supporting cast has been on rookie contracts. When Stafford retires, the Rams expect to flip that equation and benefit from a cheap quarterback with expensive talent around him.
That’s the big difference from the Saints comparison. New Orleans kept leaning on the credit card, then lost its Hall of Fame quarterback without a real succession plan and later lost its top-level head coach.
The Rams, by contrast, have Stafford’s replacement plan in place, and there’s no indication Sean McVay is headed anywhere. The coaching rumors that used to swirl around him haven’t carried real weight since after the 2022 season.
Los Angeles did look like it might be headed for a reckoning after 2022, when the cap needed a reset. Instead, the front office handled it cleanly.
No endless restructures. No endless pushing of the pain into the future.
The Rams gave themselves flexibility.
That doesn’t remove the need to draft well, but they’ve already shown they can find value in the mid-to-late rounds and develop it on the coaching side. If there’s a franchise that should get the benefit of the doubt on this, it’s the Rams.
They’ve made only two first-round picks since 2016, and just one of those players is still on the roster. And yet the roster has stayed alive, competitive and adaptable. For all the talk about the bill coming due, the Rams have built a structure that can keep absorbing hits without the whole thing crashing down.
They are built to cash in on this Super Bowl window, yes. But they have not mortgaged the future to the point where the bottom is about to fall out.
In Other News...
Rams Hype Just Ran Into A Brutal Playoff Warning
The Rams have spent the offseason living with championship expectations, and Pete Prisco isnt backing away from that part of the conversation. The NFL analyst sees Los Angeles finishing with the NFCs top seed and earning a first-round bye, which fits the buzz around a roster that has drawn plenty of praise and even stronger Super Bowl support from the betting market.
But Priscos view turns sharp once the playoffs actually begin. Even with the appeal of recent additions like Myles Garrett and the return of Aaron Donald, he is skeptical the Rams will handle the pressure of those expectations, and he has them falling in their first postseason game to the Seahawks. Its a warning that lands hard for a team built to contend, because the regular-season ceiling may be high even if the postseason path still looks fragile. [Read more 🡒]
Rams Make Another Quick Draft Pick Decision Fans Will Notice
The Rams have already made another small but noticeable roster tweak, cutting defensive lineman Tim Keenan III from the practice squad to create room for edge rusher Jamie Sheriff. Keenan, a seventh-round draft pick, never made much of a mark during the preseason, and his quick exit is another reminder of how little margin there is at the back end of an NFL roster.
Sheriff arrives as developmental depth at a position the Rams continue to monitor, bringing a fresh look after spending time with the Seahawks. For a team that has been willing to turn over the bottom of the roster quickly, the move fits a familiar pattern, even if it leaves the larger question of how the Rams want to build out that edge group still hanging there. [Read more 🡒]
Rams Opener Just Got Tougher With Nick Bosa Trending This Way
The Rams trip to Australia for the season opener already carried enough unfamiliarity without having to factor in Nick Bosa, and the 49ers edge rusher is suddenly looking much more like a real part of the opener picture. Bosa returned to practice for the first time since Aug. 3 after dealing with tendinitis in his right knee, the same knee that previously went through ACL surgery, giving San Francisco a late but meaningful lift as the teams prepare to open in Melbourne.
Bosa is traveling with the 49ers and said he is cautiously optimistic about being ready for the game, which is exactly the kind of development the Rams would rather not have to monitor this close to kickoff. He also sounded settled into the unusual road trip ahead, talking about the recovery process and even looking forward to trying some local coffee and checking out nature exhibits, but for Los Angeles the bigger issue is simple: the opener just got a lot more complicated if Bosa keeps trending this way. [Read more 🡒]