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profootballtalk.nbcsports.com] Rams in solid salary cap shape to make a run at a repeat in 2022
Posted by Michael David Smith on February 15, 2022, 6:26 PM EST
Los Angeles Rams defeat the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 to win the NFL Super Bowl LVI football game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
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At first blush, the Rams would appear to be heading into the 2022 season in rough salary cap shape, with current contracts that put them over the 2022 cap before they sign a single free agent. But in reality, the Rams can easily get under the cap for the upcoming season, without cutting anyone.
The Rams could create more than $70 million in cap space with simple restructures, via OverTheCap.com. That means they can take players’ current 2022 base salaries, which hit the entire 2022 salary cap, and convert most of that money into signing bonuses, with cap hits that are spread out equally over all the remaining years of the players’ contracts.
The Rams have several players who have big 2022 salaries that can be converted into signing bonuses: Just six players (Matthew Stafford, Jalen Ramsey, Cooper Kupp, Leonard Floyd, Robert Woods and Aaron Donald) have deals that could be restructured to create more than $60 million in cap space.
And while the Rams do have a lot of expensive players under contract in 2022, that’s a good thing, as it shows that they’re not at risk of losing many key players in free agency. Von Miller is the top player from the Super Bowl roster who will become a free agent next month, and the Rams can certainly create enough cap space to pay Miller to re-sign.
The biggest loss for the 2022 Rams may be Odell Beckham Jr., who tore his ACL in the Super Bowl. Beckham is a free agent, but whether he re-signs with the Rams or not, there’s a good chance he’ll miss the entire 2022 regular season because of his knee.
In the long term, the Rams may have some trouble sustaining their roster, given that they traded away their next two first-round draft picks for Stafford and traded away this year’s second- and third-round picks for Miller. And if Donald retires, that would be a huge loss for their roster. But as far as the salary cap is concerned, the Rams are in fine shape.
