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promomasterj
Is it like the Saints who were up against the cap every year and kept going to the playoffs anyway. Sounds ok to me.
And none of us know what the 2022 cap will be or what deals will be restricted and who will be traded / released. Kind of pointless to worry about it now. The Rams have, and will continue to manage the cap as they need.
Cap hell is when a team has to cut players to get under the cap, to the point where it affects their performance as a team. It happens. Backloading is one especially good way to get there. That's why Demoff and Snead have both openly said it's a thing you want to avoid if you can. According to them, it's bad policy. They had to do it in 2021 because they are carrying 2 qbs on the cap, to the tune of a combined 44.7 M. More than any other team. To get around that, they had to subtract future cap space to do any business. That's what the restructuring is about.
So. The Rams have several choices in 2022 when it comes to the OL. As it stands they have to replace and/or pay guys at 2 positions--center and left tackle.
One way out of replacing a left OT without high draft picks is to sign a free agent. That's why the small portion of this having to do with cap hell came up. I know that's all that interested you, but it really is only a portion of the story. Cap hell came up cause someone said you could mortgage the cap again to get enough money to sign a starting caliber left OT. There are 2 responses to that. No you can't keep restructuring, eventually you cut your own throat doing that, And that wasn't even the major point. The major point is that it is rare for a starting caliber left OT to become a free agent.
And remember since it's both tackle and center, 2 things are happening. You are either buying both of them, in which case it's even more money, or you are letting one go--and possibly both--and starting over.
Okay so buying a free agent isn't all that likely at left OT, what about drafting one and starting a rookie? Finding a good left OT after the 1st round is rare too.
So that's a bunch of combined problems.
The solutions I am hearing so far? Be quiet, we don't want to hear it. The team always does things right. These things are easy to fix because the team is run by geniuses who never have problems.
It's not convincing.
BTW I didn't cover the whole set of problems and issues that come up with having both left OT and center unsettled in the same year. I touched on a lot of it but not all of it.
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2021 11:58AM by zn.