Updating Rams' Salary Cap Space After the Draft

With the 2025 NFL Draft in the books, the Rams storm towards training camp as Les Snead looks to secure deals with the six rookies he selected while being involved in talks to bring Jalen Ramsey back to Los Angeles.

The Rams have made several massive financial commitments this offseason, putting pen to paper for deals with Matthew Stafford, Davante Adams, Ahkello Witherspoon, Tutu Atwell, Poona Ford, and Alaric Jackson.

The Rams have 2025 commitments of $47.6 million to Stafford, $22 million for Adams and Atwell, and $17.9 million to Kevin Dotson. The Rams also have $50 million in dead cap, according to Spotrac.com, an amount due to the departures of players like Cooper Kupp and Jonah Jackson.

Thus, the Rams have $20.7 million in cap space. The Rams still need to sign their 2025 NFL Draft class.

Believe it or not, the Rams are still paying off Aaron Donald's deal as the future Hall of Famer enters his second year of retirement at $9 million against the cap. Kupp has a dead cap hit of $22 million, Joe Noteboom has one of $10 million, and Jonah Jackson is the other big expense at $8.5 million.

The good news for the Rams is that they have the smallest draft pool in the NFL. That means they'll have the cheapest rookie class at $6.7 million, according to Over the Cap. Several things helped achieve the cheap new players.

Trading away the 26th overall selection played a big role, and not selecting a quarterback did as well.

The Rams also drafted only six players after using picks to trade up twice.

At $6.7 million, the Rams would approximately have $14 million in cap space. That brings us to Jalen Ramsey.

Here's the situation with Ramsey as told last Thursday by Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer.

"I think the Los Angeles Rams would love to have him." Wrote Breer. "The money is the issue for the Rams and any other potential suitor, and the Miami Dolphins who are trying to move him as well. He’s due $25.1 million this year, and all but $865,000 of it is fully guaranteed."

"At this point of the offseason, very few teams have the cash in the budget or room on the cap to take that salary on. In a special circumstance, you might make it work. But as good as Ramsey still is, I don’t know that there are many teams that would look at acquiring him in that way."

"So, at that point, you’d be looking for the Dolphins to take on a chunk of the money to essentially “buy” a draft pick as part of the deal to offload Ramsey and his guarantees."

With $14 million in space and the Rams want to have likely at least $4 million of space for the season, Los Angeles and Miami have a margin of $10 million to make a deal. However, if Darious Williams is moved off of the Rams, the Rams cap space goes about $19 million.

At $15 million as a margin to work with, perhaps that's the gateway to a deal.