Things are going to change at some point. FA interest will turn to draft interest.

Things never stay the same for too long.

Change is in the wind.
Already teams are understanding that QBs are so expensive, that to pay a QB $25 mil + so impacts your salary cap as to affect the rest of the roster. And not for the good. So, rookie QBs are greatly desired.....fingers crossed.

FA money is reaching new heights; and ALL positions on the field are being seen as more equally valuable (except for Q. However as long as there is a hard cap, then the rationing of that money will be the game.

Some fans, especially, think that there will always be money to pay the great (and their favorite) players of any position. But as we see some startling names released, or traded for low round picks, we're seeing a new dynamic emerge. Whereas the FA market has been seen as an expensive, but quick, way to improve a team, it is quickly reaching the prohibitively expensive point. Even more, from the players view, it is creating an even greater chasm between the have's and have not's. First tier FA's are paid gigantic money and it happens the first day FA opens. Within a couple of days activity slows to a crawl, and some decent players will now sit on the sidelines until they're willing to play for a lot less.

The pendulum is swinging and the draft is once again going to play a heavier role in team building because of the rookie salary schedule and the relatively low cost of first contracts. Some teams seem to see this coming and refuse to be drawn like a moth to a flame into nearly irrational contract numbers to acquire a single player whom they hope will help to suddenly elevate their team. It rarely happens in reality.

More and more great players who demand "QB money" but at different positions are going to be let go. Teams will rationalize it by saying that they got 4 or 5 good years at a reasonable cost for a draft pick. And the truth is, that is the way it needs to be looked at. Investments have a shelf life. Amateurs try to extend the shelf life; professional investors know better and shed those investments for new ones before the previous investment grows sour.

I do NOT see Aaron Donald as a lifetime Ram as some do. I see the Rams saying all the right things, but playing along with the real goal of getting the most years out of Donald at an affordable price as they can get; and then either releasing him or trading him. Suh is a victim of being a great player but being paid too much money. And the team can do better by putting in a good, but not great, player at his position and the money they save can be used to acquire more good players.

And, as these cycles go, once more teams join the jettisoning of top players to save money, and other teams pick them up at enormous dollars only to do the same thing in 3 years, the window is going to close on those huge contracts out of common sense. But in the meantime, picking up more draft picks is going to be the method that teams shift to, to compensate for not being participants in the FA market.

We are right at that shifting point as this article's leading question/assertion makes clear. And I think what we are seeing is that the Rams are among those who see horizon coming up fast and refuse to tie them selves up to enormous contracts that will handcuff them in a couple of years.

But.....we'll see. The AD saga is long from over. And we'll see what the Rams are willing to pay for Suh.

I think a lot of fans are going to be upset because the geography is shifting.