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The NFL Players Association has released the figures on how much unused salary cap money NFL teams are carrying over from 2016 into the 2017 season, and the Los Angeles Rams aren’t bringing much:
Wondering which teams will have the most to spend this offseason? pic.twitter.com/uDNgOZfn6O
— NFLPA (@NFLPA) January 18, 2017
Per Spotrac, the Rams currently have $5,316,758 in available space. So why not roll over all of it?
Under VP/COO Kevin Demoff, the Rams have used the available cap money at the end of the season to allot toward bonuses. Generally, those bonuses would be applied toward the 2017 salary cap. The Rams instead just use the available space at the end of the season to clear those bonuses out. So in this case, it’s $5,012,447 (or so) in bonus money getting paid out now instead of after the carryover. Net, it makes no difference. I’ve reached out to Demoff to see if he has a reason of doing it this way versus custom.
Overall, it’s not a huge issue. The Rams are looking at about $40m in cap space (the Cleveland Browns will have the most with more than $100m..............), so there’s plenty to play with in free agency. As for carryover, there’s bigger causes for concern re: the salary cap:
The Rams paid Nick Foles, Jared Cook, Coty Sensabaugh and Chris Long $19.6M to make the playoffs with other teams this year.
— SeattleRams (@seattlerams_nfl) January 18, 2017