The Rams Are Victims of Being Cash Rich

For the Bengals, their Cinderella run was spearheaded by Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and a defense built on the money the team was saving by having the three aforementioned offensive skill players on rookie deals.

Fast forward to today, the Rams are still in a great place competetively, having made the postseason in back to back years while the Bengals have virtually no defense with their star defensive end Trey Hendrickson and the man set to replace him Shemar Stewart set to miss the season opener because the Bengals won't extend Hendrickson or sign Stewart to the contract he wants.

The reason may be that after handing out extensions to Burrow, Chase, and Higgins, the Bengals do not have any more liquid cash to spare.

The 33rd Team's Ari Meirov spoke about discussions held by owners regarding the salary cap.

"NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said owners had a lengthy discussion at the league meetings about the salary cap system — how well it’s working, whether teams are operating within its intended spirit, and what changes might be needed in the next round of collective bargaining with the players’ union," wrote Meirov. "In short: Owners are already looking ahead to potential changes to keep the system fair, competitive, and free of loopholes."

However, NFL analyst Brett Kollmann has a different view of Meirov's report.

"Translation - the league is likely concerned that cash rich owners use void years and rolling option bonuses to continuously push contracts higher and higher in terms of cash flow, but lower in terms of cap hits, and "poorer" owners can't really replicate that," wrote Kollmann.

The Rams have a cash rich owner, thus Les Snead and his staff have been able to walk a delicate dance with the cap as the cap is not cash, it's accounting and when fans hear about contract restructures and players getting theie signing bonus early, the team must have that amount in liquid cash that goes into an escrow account. No cash, no deal.

However, due to Bengals' owner Mike Brown's lack of other streams of revenue outside the NFL, he doesn't have the liquid cash like the Rams have and thus, the team has suffered and the NFL loses when star man Joe Burrow isn't in the playoffs, something that happened in 2024 because of his underpaid and horrific defense.

If an owner can not compete because they are poor by NFL standards, that's is their burden. This is capitalism and this is America. Get your money up. The Rams should be able to enjoy what they can afford and notice how when new owners come in who are cash rich, the overall product gets better.

Case and point: The Rams. Another point: The Commanders.

Enough already.