Rams FA preview: The Plan includes thinking Big...

Rams free-agency preview: Plan includes thinking big

[www.dailybulletin.com]

Rams general manager Les Snead calls it “the method to the madness,” an acknowledgment that the team’s free-agent strategy sometimes needs explaining.

The method and madness have mostly worked for the Rams in the past few years, helping to keep the roster deep enough in talent to extend coach Sean McVay’s run of winning seasons to four in 2020.

But can it provide what the team needs for 2021, when the Rams are desperate to take the big step back to the Super Bowl, which will be played on home turf at SoFi Stadium in February?

The Rams go into the start of free-agent negotiations Monday and signings Wednesday hoping to avoid a defensive exodus led by Leonard Floyd and John Johnson, add a deep-threat wide receiver to exploit new quarterback Matthew Stafford’s strong arm, and keep an improving offensive line intact.

But this free-agent season could resemble the past three, when the Rams lost more prominent players than they added. Chalk that up to their own salary-cap squeeze, which saw them go into the weekend having to trim a league-high $33.1 million in salaries to get under the limit by Wednesday. And blame the league-wide, pandemic-era revenue shortfall, which resulted in a per-team cap set at $182.5 million, down $15.7 million from 2020 and down about $25 million from teams’ long-term budgets.

Snead, vice president of football and business administration (and chief contract negotiator) Tony Pastoors and coach Sean McVay will be making moves in the next week in a league environment expected to see payroll cuts create more free agents, the glut depressing the price for “middle-class” free agents, and teams and players agreeing to more short-term contracts and fewer record-setting deals than normal.

But mostly, attribute modest expectations for the Rams this week to strategy.

Since 2017, when they made the splashy signings of wide receiver Robert Woods (five years, $34 million) and left tackle Andrew Whitworth (three years, $33.75 million), their most notable free-agent acquisitions have been the relatively cheap, one- and two-year signings of defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, linebacker Clay Matthews, safety Eric Weddle and Floyd. The first three served as one-season stopgaps, and now Floyd could leave after one excellent season.

In that span, when it comes to free agents seeking long, rich contracts, the Rams have been more willing to let them go than re-sign or acquire them.

The money they don’t spend on free agents, they’ve spent on contract extensions for core players: defensive tackle Aaron Donald, cornerback Jalen Ramsey, receivers Wood and Cooper Kupp, tight end Tyler Higbee, and, less successfully, running back Todd Gurley and quarterback Jared Goff.

Losing big free agents brings compensatory draft picks, such as the third-rounders they used to select tackle Bobby Evans in 2019 and safety Terrell Burgess in 2020 and the third- and fourth-rounders they’ve been awarded in the April 29-May 1 draft for losing linebackers Dante Fowler and Cory Littleton a year ago. The compensatory picks help to make up for the Rams’ proclivity for trading away first-rounders for proven talent like Ramsey and Stafford.

Snead points out that the Patriots, Steelers and Ravens have succeeded with a similar hoarding of compensatory picks.

“I call it the model, the method to the madness,” said Snead, who said it requires a “special coaching staff” and effective scouting to pull it off.

Whom the Rams might try to acquire this week depends in part on whether they can re-sign Floyd, 28, after a career-best 10 1/2-sack season. Second-year outside linebacker Terrell Lewis’ injury history makes him an uncertain replacement.

It also depends on whether the Rams re-sign center Austin Blythe. Snead hinted at Blythe’s value by saying it’s hard to trust “such a nuanced position” to a rookie or new signing.

The most dramatic acquisition the Rams could make is a deep-threat wide receiver.

Snead noted Wednesday that this can mean “speed and throwing the ball deep,” but it also could mean finding a receiver who’s “tall and big and he can go get a rebound and you can throw the ball up.”

Coincidence? Free-agent receivers who meet Snead’s “tall and big” description include two of Stafford’s targets in Detroit: Marvin Jones, who is 6-foot-2, 199 pounds and was the NFL leader with 18.0 yards per catch in 2017, and Kenny Golladay, the 6-foot-4, 214-pound league leader in receiving touchdowns with 11 in 2019.

Free-agent receivers fitting the template — tall, big, explosive — also include Rashard Higgins (Browns), Breshad Perriman (Jets), A.J. Green (Bengals) and Kenny Stills (Bills), each of whom, like Jones and Golladay, was top-10 in average yards before catch in one of the past three seasons.

What can they afford?

With the whole league under more payroll-cap constraints than usual, McVay said in February “it’s going to be absolute bananas” seeing what teams do.

For the Rams, at least, there’s method to those bananas.

Here are the Rams’ free agents, unrestricted and restricted (marked with asterisks):

Offense: Blythe, TE Gerald Everett, WR Josh Reynolds, RB Malcolm Brown, QB Blake Bortles, TE Johnny Mundt*.

Defense: Floyd, Johnson, CB Troy Hill, DE Morgan Fox, OLB Samson Ebukam, OLB Derek Rivers, CB Darious Williams*.

Special teams: LS Jake McQuaide.