General manager Snead puts on his cost-cutting cap

Rams general manager Les Snead awoke Wednesday to word the NFL finally set this year’s salary cap, a figure much lower than prepandemic but $2.5 million higher than the minimum agreed to by the league and players’ union.

It’s one time when an extra $2.5 million doesn’t look like a lot of money.

“I don’t think the 2.5’s really going to help us if you kind of look at where we are and how much we’re over (the cap),” Snead said. “Twopoint-five’s probably a little bit of a drop in the bucket.

But at least now the Rams’ front office knows what it’s up against.

According to the NFL contract tracker overthecap. com, the Rams’ player payroll is $33.1 million above the new $182.5 million salary cap (the effective cap varies slightly per team).

The franchise’s red ink is so deep in part because the cap is $15.7 million lower than it was a year ago, reflecting the NFL’s COVID19-related revenue declines. But whatever the specific figure, the Rams’ cap deficit was the biggest in the league as of Tuesday.

One reason is the more than $30 million still charged against the cap for running back Todd Gurley, released last March, and quarterback Jared Goff, on his way to the Lions in exchange for quarterback Matthew Stafford in a trade agreed upon in January.

The Rams must get under the cap by March 17 — when free-agent signings can begin — using a combination of renegotiating existing contracts and releasing some players.

Snead said he wants to avoid having to release anybody, and that he has been talking for two or three weeks with agents for candidates for contract restructuring.

“What makes this unprecedented (is) we’ve had to knock on the door of a lot of our key figures and ask them in some cases to make sacrifices, in some cases adjust their contract to help us get under the cap,” Snead said in a video press conference Tuesday. “The vision right now is to get to the finish line without having to release players.”

The Rams would hope to restructure contracts with high-paid veterans, not costing the players any money but converting 2021 salary into signing bonuses that are spread out over the length of the deal in cap terms. Their highpaid players with years remaining on their contracts include defensive tackle Aaron Donald, cornerback Jalen Ramsey, wide receivers Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp, offensive tackles Andrew Whitworth and Rob Havenstein, and defensive end Michael Brockers.

The Rams will have to scrimp to afford re-signing key unrestricted freeagents from a list that includes linebacker Leonard

Floyd, safety John Johnson, cornerback Troy Hill, wide receiver Josh Reynolds, tight end Gerald Everett and center Austin Blythe, let alone to afford any eye-catching additions.

“We’ve had to have some calls with some of our unrestricted free agents (and) restricted free agents and let them know our intent of whether we’ll be attempting to re-sign them or assuming they’re going to have a better market than what we would be able to pay, and allow them to know their path and how they need to move forward,” said Snead, who said it was lack of cap space that prevented using the franchise tag to hold onto Floyd or Johnson.

Acknowledging the Rams’ fiscal bind is partly a result of “mistakes along the way” in “paying quality players,” Snead said he’s comfortable with losing high-profile free agents and receiving compensatory draft picks in return.

Later Tuesday, the Rams got the specifics about their compensatory picks in the April 29-May 1 draft. The picks are two third-rounders (101st and 104th overall) and one fourth-rounder (142nd). Two of those are for losing free-agent linebackers Dante Fowler and Cory Littleton in 2020, and one of the thirdrounders is for losing minority executive Brad Holmes when he became the Lions’ general manager in January.

The Rams have a total of six draft picks in the second, third (two), fourth, sixth and seventh rounds.