(News4usonline) – The glory of winning comes with a price. It also comes with some rewards as well. The Los Angeles Rams are finding this out. When the Rams start the 2023 NFL season the team is not going to resemble anything close to the squad that beat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI. Well, maybe a little.
Due to a rash of injuries, the Rams weren’t the same team last season. But with free agency hitting the market this spring and with a slew of draft picks at their disposal, the Rams have made and will be making wholesale changes to their roster. The remake of the team’s roster will be more solidified once this year’s NFL Draft takes place.
That’s because, after a season of languishing in their post-Super Bowl blues, the Rams have stacked their chips for the present and the future with 11 picks in this year’s draft. To stay relevant, the Rams have had to make some very difficult choices in order to better the ballclub.
If there is one move thus far that says a lot about the state of the Rams and the direction they are headed in, it would be the team’s trade of stalwart cornerback Jalen Ramsey to the Miami Dolphins.
The trade-off for the Rams in the two-team swap is a third-round draft pick and tight end Hunter Long. Of course, the move caught people off guard. After all, Ramsey has been named a Pro Bowler in each of his four seasons playing for the Rams.
He was also one of the main defensive cogs that helped the Rams beat everyone in their paths on their way to victory in Super Bowl LVI. During his press conference Rams head coach Sean McVay talked about the value that Ramsey brought to the franchise.
“Jalen has been instrumental in our team’s success during his time with the Rams and it was a privilege to be able to coach such an elite competitor and teammate,” said Rams head coach Sean McVay. “His versatility, intelligence, and leadership put him in a class of his own. We will always be grateful for his impact on our organization and for his efforts in the Los Angeles community.”
Ramsey’s value when he was with the Rams depreciated in terms that Los Angeles had to get rid of two first-round draft picks and added draft selection in order to get him. Ramsey has not been the only player saying goodbye to the organization.
The Rams released edge rusher Leonard Floyd. Backup quarterback Baker Mayfield moved on to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Defensive lineman Greg Gaines made the exodus to the Bucs as well. And there is a good chance that wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. will not return to the team after sitting out last season because of a knee injury that he suffered in the Rams’ Super Bowl win in 2022.
The team also parted ways with linebacker Bobby Wagner after one season. One specific reason why the Rams had to part ways with both Ramsey and Wagner points to the team getting under the salary cap. According to Spotrac, a sports statistic and analytical website, the Rams took a $45.5 million cap hit from the salaries and bonuses dished out to Floyd ($19 million), Ramsey ($19 million), and Wagner ($7.5 million).
Former offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth, who is now retired, account for $2 million of the team’s cap hit. The Rams have six players (Cooper Kupp, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald, Allen Robinson II, Rob Havenstein, and Tyler Higbee) on their current roster that account for a little more than 49 percent of the team’s salary cap space, according to Spotrac.
In a conference call with reporters on March 9, Les Snead, the general manager of the Rams, dived into the complexities of trying to navigate the salary cap and what he and the organization are doing to stay under it.
“What’s interesting for us this year, step one is actually getting under the cap, let’s call it when the bell rings on Wednesday,” Snead said. “ That sometimes will limit your ability to hold onto a player until June 1, even though you could release him Wednesday and designate him June 1. He is still counting in the moment, so there’s a lot of calculus that goes into that, especially with our roster, it’s a very complicated, complex situation that we got to work through.
“And I think what the big picture is this year, different than probably the past five years for us, we definitely have to engineer a healthier cap situation just because obviously we’re not in a luxury tax situation so we can’t pay our dues annually, we can push them out, they can compound. So we have elected, based on the cap and based on what we’ve done…our DNA is to attack, hit the gas, we’re going to hit the brakes a little bit.”
With the Rams, everything begins and ends around quarterback Matthew Stafford, who missed most of last season because on injury. Although the $20 million he is scheduled to make this season accounts for 8.8 percent of the team’s cap space, Stafford is one of the cornerstones that the Rams have in place to build their team around.
“I think we’re going to definitely rely on Matthew,” Snead said. “He’s definitely one of our pillars. As I said, step one of this thing is getting under the cap. Unfortunately to get under the cap, that usually means deletion with some of your better veteran players who are making higher salaries and it can also mean maybe there’s an unrestricted free agent or two or three or four that you can’t necessarily resign to get under the cap.
“But there are some players that have been here, that have done that, that have shown they can change the math in a football game Matthew Stafford being one of them.”
The revolving door of free agency will likely result in more roster turnover for the Rams.
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, social justice, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University.