Jake Long's contract leaves the Rams with ample cap room in 2013

Hats off to Kevin Demoff and Les Snead. The St. Louis Rams won big in making their play for Jake Long. Not only did they get a potential Pro Bowl tackle to protect quarterback Sam Bradford, they also managed to sign Long to a very reasonable deal that doesn't carry too much of a salary cap hit for 2013.

Long's contract with the Rams carries a $4.5 million cap hit this year, according to Jim Thomas of the Post-Dispatch. That leaves the Rams with $3 million in cap space at the moment. That leaves them with some room to make another move or two, like finding a reasonably priced starting safety or re-signing backup offensive linemen like Chris Williams or Rob Turner.

It doesn't mean that the Rams are stuck at $3 million under the cap. Obviously, the team had a plan in place to sign Louis Delmas along with Jared Cook and Long, before Delmas got a better offer from the Lions. All it takes is one stroke of the pen to restructure a deal to free up cap space. It's just a matter of assessing the opportunity cost of doing so.

And what about the rookie salary pool? Well, that works a little differently. I'm going to send you to the fine folks at Over the Cap to explain.

As for the other details in Long's contract, he gets some $15-16 million in guaranteed money no matter what. That could climb to $20 million with incentives which are believed to be based on playing time, according to Thomas.