PHOENIX – What was alluded to back in January became formally public last Friday when it comes to the Rams’ intentions for 2023 and beyond.
Take the foot off the gas some in 2023 for a healthier cap situation in 2024 and beyond.
“I do know this, (Chief Operating Officer) Kevin (Demoff) did a brilliant job articulating it,” Snead told theRams.com Monday at the annual league meeting, referring to Demoff’s letter sent to Season Ticket Members (STMs) on Friday. “We can never be that eloquent. But all the variables he mentioned in the letter is what we’ve been discussing, not necessarily for 2023 but 2024 and beyond. We knew we were going to have to, at some point, engineer a healthier, more sustainable cap situation so that we could take advantage of opportunities in the future. But at some point, right, you have to take a step back to take two steps forward, and that’s a little bit what we’re doing in terms of the cap situation.”
In that letter to STMs, Demoff explained that the franchise effectively faced two choices this offseason. They could either restructure contracts to give themselves another shot with the core of their roster – but that would necessitate a “total rebuild” over the next few seasons – or focus on restocking their draft capital and creating a healthier long-term cap situation, which would help them compete in 2023 and beyond.
Ultimately, Los Angeles chose the latter, which paved the way for some difficult decisions. It released outside linebacker Leonard Floyd and linebacker Bobby Wagner, then traded Jalen Ramsey to the Miami Dolphins for tight end Hunter Long and a 2023 third-round pick (No. 77 overall). More contributors have departed since the start of free agency March 15.
“I told some of our beat (writers) today, when they’re like, ‘Oh, well, kind of a reset year,'” Pastoors told theRams.com on Monday. “I was like, maybe I missed it, when was the last time we were heavily involved in free agency? This is pretty normal for us. I know (general manager) Les (Snead) probably shared, look at the last four years, we probably lead the NFL in comp picks. And a lot of – whether it was Matthew (Stafford), Aaron (Donald), Cooper (Kupp), those deals got done last year, but really those deals were for ’23 and beyond, right? All of them had time left on current deals. Obviously coming off a Super Bowl, we did some things out of the ordinary for them, but those were basically, had we not done them, we’d be staring at them right now, so we…
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