Examining how Trent McDuffie's mammoth extension could impact the Rams cap space moving forward

According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, the Rams will pay McDuffie an average of $31 million a year on top of his fifth-year option, for a total extension worth $124 million. His deal will make him the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL (at least, until Devon Witherspoon and Christian Gonzalez get paid).

How does McDuffie's extension affect the Rams' cap space?

As it stands right now, McDuffie is playing the 2026 season on his fifth-year option. That number is a fully guaranteed $13.6 million figure, and his cap hit is the same, for a roughly 4.4% of their total cap space.

How would his extension affect it? While the figures aren't fully revealed yet, we can take a rough guesstimate based on other similar contracts to figure out where McDuffie's deal will land. If we compare McDuffie's extension to how other recent extensions have turned out, we can provide a rough figure on the impact for the Rams' cap space.

All cap hit data provided by overthecap.com.

2026 will be the first year of Jaycee Horn's contract extension. He signed a four year, $100 million deal last offseason. Here's how his deal shakes out.

• 2026: $24M cap hit, 7.7% of cap
• 2027: $22.6M cap hit, 6.9% of cap
• 2028: $28.6M, 8.1% of cap

Sauce Gardner's deal is perhaps the most relevant as the most recently signed one and was negotiated on top of his fifth-year option. Gardner signed a four-year, 120.4M deal, and before the McDuffie extension, was the highest-paid cornerback in the league. Here's what his deal shapes up as.

• 2026: $9.5M cap hit, 3.1% of cap
• 2027: $20.9M cap hit, 6.4% of cap
• 2028: $26.2M cap hit, 7.4% of cap

Gardner's deal is a little different, since he will still be playing on his rookie deal in 2026, hence the low cap hit.

Projecting Trent McDuffie's contract

Projecting this for the Rams is a little tricky since we don't know the full numbers yet or how it's structured, but i would hazard a guess that his deal looks something like this:

• 2026: $13.6M cap hit, 4.4% of cap (fifth-year option)
• 2027: $23.1M cap hit, 7% of cap
• 2028: $29.1M cap hit, 8.2% of cap

As for how it impacts their cap space, this is how OTC projects it out, following this hypothetical extension.

• 2026: $27.4M (13th-most)
• 2027: $144.2 (12th-most)
• 2028: $267.9 (ninth-most)

All told, while this deal looks expensive on the surface, comparatively to the share of cap space occupied, it's manageable. For comparison's sake, left tackle Alaric Jackson occupies 8.2% of cap space in 2026, with a 7.5% cap space in 2027. It's hard to argue the Rams wouldn't be ok with a similar deal for a player of McDuffie's caliber.