For as much is made about the Los Angeles Rams’ salary cap situation, there’s one aspect of it that puts them in a good spot. Heading into 2020, they’re carrying very little dead money on the books, which not every team can say.
According to Spotrac, the Rams only have $387,593 in dead money at the moment, which is the sixth-lowest total in the NFL. Most of that comes from one player, too.
John Franklin-Myers, who was shockingly a final cut before the 2019 regular season began, carries a dead cap charge of $226,180. Obviously, that’s not a big number, but it does make up about two-thirds of the Rams’ dead money.
The rest of it comes from John Kelly, Dakota Allen, Trevon Young, Alex Bachman and Johnathan Lloyd. Kelly and Allen were both signed back to the practice squad, but their initial dead cap charges still remain on the books.
As of now, the Rams are projected to have between $16.8 million and $21.3 million in cap space next season, depending on where the salary cap falls between the $196.8-$201.2 million projection.
That’s the ninth-lowest total in the NFL for next season, which means the Rams will have to do some work in order to clear some space for free agents – both their own and outside players. With Cory Littleton, Dante Fowler Jr., Michael Brockers and Andrew Whitworth hitting free agency, the rams won’t be able to keep everyone.
If they do go to extremes to create cap space in 2020, though, it’ll bring more dead money on the books. For example, if they trade Todd Gurley, they’ll incur a dead cap charge of $12.6 million, while also saving $4.65 million. Similarly, if they trade Brandin Cooks, they’ll take on $17.8 million in dead money, which is $1 million more than Cooks’ cap hit. So they’d be paying him more to play elsewhere than they would to keep him.
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