Salary cap updates for Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey, others after restructures

We were saying all year to not necessarily worry about the cap situation for the LA Rams because we knew that eventually they’d address it to get below the line. They did that last week and these are the knowns, according to updates at OvertheCap.com:

• Aaron Donald converted $18 million in salary into a bonus, bringing his cap number down to $14.3 million for 2021. Donald’s cap hit for 2022 will now be $26.75 million, followed by $23.5 million and $26.25 million.
• Jalen Ramsey converted $16 million in salary into a bonus, bringing his cap number down to $9.7 million. He will have a $23.2 million cap hit in 2022, then $25.2 million in 2023. The earliest that the Rams could get considerable cap savings by releasing Ramsey wouldn’t be until 2024, when Ramsey will be 30.
• Andrew Whitworth will only incur a $5.6 million cap hit next season, making him a bargain at left tackle. Arizona’s D.J. Humphries is set to have the biggest 2021 cap hit at the position at $19.3 million. Whitworth’s ranks 17th among left tackles. He now has a $14.6 million cap hit in 2022, but with $13 million in savings if released, which seems inevitable given his age and the savings.
• Cooper Kupp only has a $5.3 million cap hit for 2021, but his 2022 cap hit is now $18.3 million and $7.5 million of his $14.5 million base salary is now guaranteed. The team would have $19.7 million in dead money if they parted with Kupp next year. He will have an $18 million cap hit in 2023 and then he has two void years, the first of which carries a $4.6 million salary cap hit. That means LA will pay $4.6 million against the cap for Kupp in 2024 whether he’s on the team or not.
• And Robert Woods only has a $5.875 million cap hit for 2021, but that will go up to $15.7 million in 2022. The Rams would incur a $12.1 million cap hit in 2022 if they release Woods next year. Woods will have a $15.95 million cap hit in 2023, with $9.55 million in savings, if released. These moves do a fairly solid job of guaranteeing that Matthew Stafford will be throwing to Kupp and Woods for at least two seasons.

As of now, the LA Rams are projected to have $10.25 million in cap room and the fact that they don’t have a first round pick means that they have even less to worry about when it comes to paying their rookies. The Rams could still be shopping for help in a number of areas, including center, inside linebacker, receiver, cornerback, and defensive end.