Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead has not been shy about making big moves in recent years and it seems he may have to keep that same approach this offseason.
The Rams have several key starters set to test the waters of free agency and seemingly not very much room in the salary cap to work with in order to bring them back. Of course, this is the result of all the recent investments that the front office has made in order to secure this team’s nucleus of talent.
There is now plenty of concern regarding a major roster overhaul this offseason since Los Angeles does not have very many resources to keep their looming free agents from testing the market. Despite all the talk about this team being hamstrung by the contracts of quarterback Jared Goff and running back Todd Gurley, Snead does not appear to be too worried.
In fact, he even feels that their salary cap woes have been blown out of proportion, via ESPN’s Lindsey Thiry:
“I do call it probably a false perception,” Snead said. “Ultimately, I can see why that would be a perception, but maybe there’s an element of staying a little too shallow.”
Snead added that he expects to take full advantage of the expected increase in the salary cap this offseason and there could be some trades on the way to recoup lost assets:
“From a salary-cap standpoint, and I assume the cap does go up, there’s a new collective bargaining agreement that’s coming that’s another variable that we don’t know about,” Snead said. “We’ve shown in the past that when you have commodities that you might move on with via trade to collect draft capital that maybe the perception says you don’t have and to clear cap space.”
There is certainly plenty of truth to Snead’s comments with the salary expected to increase from $188.2 million to $200 million in the 2020 NFL season. As a result, it appears he is no ready to press the panic button just yet.
Snead’s comments also seem to indicate that he could be looking to make some moves in order to shore up some more resources either for the cap or future draft picks. It will likely be similar to when the Rams dealt away cornerbacks Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters in order to make room for cornerback Jalen Ramsey‘s future contract extension.
While Los Angeles may be in a tough spot as of right now, it is certainly encouraging to see that Snead is confident about their ability to avoid some serious turnover to the roster.
