i guess the prevailing wisdom is that the swap of a 5th round pick next year to dump $4M of 2019 cap space to rollover to 2020 is to be able to help pay for ramsey's extension. may very well be.

however, i think snead is more likely up to something else.

first, if i remember the articles correctly, the rams touched base with ramsey's agent before the trade and were told ramsey would play for his year 5 option amount in 2020 as long as he was assured the right money for a long term extension. assuming this is accurate, ramsey's covered for 2020. no need to free up cap space to cover him next year. but they'll have to deal with him cap space wise after 2020, when their cap situation improves greatly.

meanwhile, starters fowler, brockers, littleton, blythe and zuerlein plus jojo natson, bortles, fox and christian all come off contract in 2020. i think with the cap space the rams had before trading talib they could've kept littleton and zuerlein or fowler or brockers (i'm assuming blythe is gone but you can swap him in and lose littleton if you prefer).

no, i think snead freed up the talib cap space to try to keep fowler or brockers on top of littleton and zuerlein. my money is on fowler.