I find any nuanced discussion of the cap, or its increase, to be a bit over the top.
There are so many considerations that we aren't even aware of.
So for someone to claim to know how to fit such and such players under the cap is.... well...I won't use the word I have in mind.
Who here has worked with an NFL team and with the NFL cap in order to sign 53 players?
Anybody can do the math when we know the current cap and get word of an increase. But exactly how that affects all the players, or any specific players or any specific positions, or specific contract language, or gotchas within the CBA, is pure guesswork and personal opinion.
As it relates to Donald, it is very hard to know what the Rams internal concerns are. It sure isn't about if the owner is willing and able to pay a nearly unlimited amount. It sure isn't about if they think Donald is a generational talent because they've confessed to that for well over a year. But anyone who owns a stake in anything, and hires people, knows that even though you may want to hire the best doesn't mean that other considerations can't, in some cases, hamper your ability to do so. Or, that the person that you see as the best simply has demands that would upend certain pay structures and policies that you have, and are well thought out. But in the case of the NFL, you are working with a league mandated hard salary cap and very technical terms and conditions that determines precisely how that cap works and how contract language can work that at times seeks to find ways around cap limitations.
What we do know is that a) Snead and Demoff claim that they have offered to make Donald the highest paid D player at any D position; b) Donald wants more than what they've offered; c) he is apparently willing to absorb the fines and lose some paychecks to get what he wants; d) the Rams do not see eye to eye on his value to the team (openly stated by Demoff); e) Donald is currently under contract to play for $6.9 mil this year; f) due to his hold out he is now going to officially be an RFA and not a UFA after this year; g) neither party has thus far taken to the press to pressure the other side.
Beyond that, little is known about what may happen from here on.
It is my speculation from what happened last year and so for this year that Donald will miss a couple of game checks and then report. The Rams will forgive the fines but NOT forgive the game checks. Donald will never get a new deal from the Rams but rather he'll remain a Ram for this year and next (and possibly the year after that) and then be gone. And this dog and pony show will go on every year. There's guys that simply will never be satisfied and will never leave a nickel left on the table. The moment they see someone else make more than them, they want to have their deal redone.
I surely hope that my speculation is wrong. I want to see AD on the Rams. But I just don't see him as the key to the Rams winning the division or making it to the Superbowl. But, he would of course help.
