Last season, the Los Angeles Rams made some difficult personnel decisions in order to clear the cap and give the team a clean slate. While the contracts weren’t necessarily ones that the team regretted, for the Rams to be able to re-allocate money to other places on the roster, moving on from the contracts of Leonard Floyd, Jalen Ramsey, and others were necessary.
Those moves resulted in the Rams carrying the most amount of dead money on their 2023 cap. However, this season, the Rams have the least amount of dead money is 2024. That allowed them to sign and re-sign multiple free agents which was something that they were not able to do last year.
The Rams have done a better job over the last two years in investing big money in players that will be key contributors moving forward. With that said, there are likely contracts on the books that they still regret and will be looking forward to clearing from the cap. As it stands, the Rams currently have seven players set to make more than $10M in 2024. Those players are:
- Matthew Stafford: $49.5M
- Cooper Kupp: $29.8M
- Rob Havenstein: $14.7M
- Jonah Jackson: $13.6M
- Kevin Dotson: $12.7M
- Tyler Higbee: $12.6M
- Joseph Noteboom: $11.6M
The situation around Matthew Stafford’s contract is no secret. Stafford wants a new contract with more guaranteed money. It’s possible that a new contract would result in a slight pay-raise for Stafford this season. However, $49.5M currently puts him as the third-highest paid quarterback in 2024 and behind players like Deshaun Watson and Dak Prescott. As long as Stafford performs well, nobody will be complaining about his deal.
Where things get slightly interesting is with Cooper Kupp. Kupp currently has the second-highest cap number among wide receivers in 2024 behind only Tyreek Hill. The reason this is interesting is because Kupp hasn’t played a full season since his triple crown year in 2021. HIs efficiency numbers last year were also at a career-low.
If Kupp plays like a top-10 wide receiver, the Rams will have no issue paying him the $29M price tag. However, another sub-par season with injuries and Kupp may become a difficult decision for the Rams after this season. The Rams will have an ‘out’ in Kupp’s contract after this year. Obviously, that’s something that they would want to avoid, but at the end of the day the NFL is a business. The Rams currently aren’t getting good value with Kupp’s deal.
The Rams have clearly invested in the offensive line. Three of their top-5 earners are starters in that group. Kevin Dotson will need to back-up his play from last year to warrant his contract and Jonah Jackson needs to prove himself as one of the best left guards in the NFL. Both of those contracts are somewhat risky, but if they pay off, that’s one of the best guard duos. Some may consider Rob Havenstein overpaid, but he’s just the seventh highest-paid right tackle in 2024 and it’s a very manageable cap number. Havenstein’s deal is more of a bargain than an overpay.
That leads us to Tyler Higbee. Higbee is the fourth-highest paid tight end in the NFL in 2024 ahead of players like George Kittle, Dallas Goedart, and Cole Kmet. When the Rams signed Tyler Higbee to an extension last year, the deal seemed questionable at the time and it doesn’t look any better after the tight end tore his ACL in the NFC Wild Card game. Higbee had the fewest receptions of his career since 2020 and fewest receiving yards since 2018.
The Rams tight end signed a contract extension that was set to expire after last year which seemed like the perfect time to move on. Instead, the Rams will have Higbee on the books each of the next two years with another void year in 2026. While a solid tight end, Higbee is likely the contract that the Rams regret and it makes him arguably the most ‘overpaid’ player on the Rams roster.
With that said, Joe Noteboom is a close second. Noteboom is set to have an $11.6M cap-hit this year as a backup left tackle. While a solid depth piece, Noteboom has been the mistake that the Rams simply can’t move on from. When he’s been relied on as a starter, he hasn’t been able to stay healthy. That’s led to him being a “sixth-man” on the offensive line, but he’s also making almost three-times as much as the Rams starting left tackle.
This is the final year of Noteboom’s contract, but he also has two void years with cap-hits of $10M and $5M in 2025 and 2026. Noteboom was thought to be the heir apparent to Andrew Whitworth and after a solid playoff run, the Rams rewarded their third-round pick. Unfortunately, it’s a risk that didn’t pay off and been a contract that been difficult to make work for both team and player.
Heading into 2024, the Rams are in a pretty good spot from a cap perspective. They have $34M in cap space next year and $86M in 2026. That future flexibility is why the Rams took the hit that they did last year and explains how they’ve structured recent deals this offseason. Obviously, there will always be at least one bad contract on a team, but overall, the Rams are in a good spot.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login