Maybe, just maybe, the Los Angeles Rams aren’t in a terrible salary-cap situation after all. Despite entering the first week of free agency $33 million over the salary cap, the Los Angeles Rams managed to get under the $182.5 million limit without cutting a single player. They restructured several contracts, including those of Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey, also trading Michael Brockers to the Lions in order to save $6.17 million.
As of now, the Rams have much more money to spend than initially anticipated. According to the NFLPA’s public salary cap report, the Rams have $17.179 million in cap space. That’s based on the top-51 rule, which only counts the 51 largest cap hits for 2021, not all 64 players currently on the Rams’ roster.
Over The Cap has the Rams with $10.252 million in cap space, which is a big difference. Their calculations now include restructures of Donald, Ramsey, Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp and Andrew Whitworth, but it doesn’t account for one possible move: restructuring Matthew Stafford’s deal.
Les Snead said last week that the Rams know restructuring his contract is a possibility, but it didn’t seem imminent. It’s possible the Rams did tweak Stafford’s deal, which if officially done would be reflected in the NFLPA’s report, not necessarily Over The Cap’s.
The Rams could’ve saved up to $12.6 million in cap space by restructuring Stafford’s contract, but they wouldn’t have to convert the maximum amount of his base salary into a signing bonus. They could’ve only converted a portion, which could explain the $6.927 million difference between the NFLPA and OTC.
It’s unlikely that either site reflects DeSean Jackson’s contract, since that hasn’t officially been signed yet. Leonard Floyd’s deal is accounted for on Over The Cap, with a $5.5 million cap hit, but it’s also possible his contract isn’t included in the NFLPA’s report – though that seems unlikely since he put pen to paper last week.
Don’t be surprised if it’s reported in the next few days that the Rams restructured Stafford’s contract because there aren’t many other ways for them to free up cap space.
