the 3 months of negotiating doesn't bother me so much but i do agree with you.

spotrac says we have $9.7M of cap space left before whatever travin howard is going to take that down by once the details of his deal are known. if he gets $1.5M, just to pick a #, and he replaces a guy on the 51 man cap roster making $895, we're down to $9.1M.

paying obj even the $7M which supposedly he's saying "won't get it done", we're down to $2M of cap space to deal with emergencies and trade opportunities.

$2M of in season cap space will almost certainly take us out of the running for any significant trade deadline opportunities. ok. we're working on 2 out 3 superbowl wins in a short period of time and our roster, coaching staff and front office are still looking very good. so we'll pass on whatever shiny trade deadline opportunities come up this coming season.

so is $2M enough to weather what ever emergencies due to injuries come up in season?

if our starting left tackle suffers a mishap we do have the retired whitworth already charged against the cap at $3.3M. reports are he's keeping in shape working out with a couple of active rams o linemen, sometimes in his garage lol. would whit play for $3.3M?
i think it depends on if we're making a serious run at another superbowl and when in the season we'd have to call on whit. but given the right circumstances, i think whit is a viable emergency backup.

what about running backs? looks like we're down to akers and funk for a while. was really hoping that we could've gotten michele back on the cheap but we didn't. was excited about the henderson being healthy and the williams draft after looking him up but not sure what we can count on them now. does aj rose really solidify the rb bench for us? i say no. not close.

and then there's the edge depth and the cb depth. curious as to why we needed to add the te pinkney. i thought hopkins and blankton were looking good down the stretch and that harris had promise. does the coaching staff see otherwise?

and so the wr depth : a) i think allen robinson was thoroughly endorsed if not requested by stafford and i'm looking forward to him pushing kupp as the #1 receiving option for stafford. i maybe a bigger fan of van jefferon than most so this may be the flaw in my thinking but i like him alot as a #3. skowronek's progression looked good to me last year. i expect he will progress in his 2nd year as opposed to experiencing a sophomore slump. we'll see. don't know what to make of atwell and mccutcheon. but to get to the point, i'm actually ok with the wr's without obj. would i LOVE to have obj back healthy. oh hell yes. he would create an overload position at wr for the rams (just like i think carl nassib would create an overload position at d-line). teams would likely struggle mightily to deal with our wr and d line given those 2.

and so to get to the point, no. i do not think $2M of cap space if we spend $7M on obj allows the rams to deal with in season emergencies. sadly, i'd have to pass on obj at $7M for a partial year.