Rams enter offseason with more resources than you think

The Los Angeles Rams head into the offseason with a lot of holes on their roster. They need to rebuild the offensive line, bring in an edge rusher, and add reinforcements to secondary among other things.

With no first round pick and limited cap space, general manager Les Snead will need to work his magic to get the team ready to compete again next season.

Pro Football Focus recently did research to find out who has the most offseason resources this season. While the Rams certainly aren’t in the top-10, they rank 23rd which is higher than the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers.

The research done by PFF breaks the offseason into three categories: draft percentile, cap percentile, and prorate percentile. The resources are quantified using the amount of draft capital, effective cap space and prorateable money each team has, placing a greater weight on each category in that order.

“Using data from Over the Cap, we can try to quantify which teams are entering the offseason with the most offseason resources. Using every team’s draft capital (using the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft value chart), effective cap space and prorateable money, we can create an offseason composite score that evaluates every team’s offseason resources without looking at each aspect individually.”

Starting with cap space, OverTheCap currently has the Rams at $13M over the cap which means that they’ll need to clear cap space before they can anything this offseason. While the Rams are 31st in cap space entering the offseason, they have left themselves some room for flexibility. According to PFF, the Rams have a 32.26 cap percentile score. They also have a 93.55 prorated cap percentile score.

The Rams weren’t a good team in 2022 and don’t have a lot of resources this offseason, but they haven’t dug themselves a hole that they can’t get out of either. Snead can restructure someone like Cooper Kupp to get under the cap and then create cap space by restructuring Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey so that the team can bring in some free agents.

They won’t be able to go on a spending spree this offseason, but they’ll have the ability to bring back some of their own free agents and sign a free agent if they choose.

Moving on to the draft, including projected compensatory picks, the Rams could have 10 selection in April. According to PFF, the Rams have a 29.03 draft percentile score. The Rams’ highest pick in April comes at the 36th overall selection. They then have another pick in the top-100.

The 36th overall pick also gives the Rams some flexibility. They can trade down if they would like to pick up more picks. While the Rams do have 10 selections, a majority of those come in the sixth and seventh rounds. It would be nice if they can find a way to turn the 36th overall pick into another top-100 selection.

Putting this all together, the Rams finish with a composite score of 29.0 which puts them at 23rd in the NFL.

Snead and co. have their work cut out for them this offseason. The resources aren’t plenty, but for a team that sold out for a championship and has no draft picks, they have left themselves with options.