Rams, With All Their Hefty Contracts, Still Went Hard After Khalil Mack

Remember when the Jon Gruden talked about too many big contracts clogging up the Raiders salary cap?

Well, the Rams don’t subscribe to that line of thinking. Not only did they acquire Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib, and Brandin Cooks this offseason, they also extended Todd Gurley and Aaron Donald.

And now it turns out the Rams were aggressively going after Khalil Mack before the Raiders traded him to Chicago, according to the Los Angeles Times. According to the report, the Raiders believed the Rams picks weren’t going to be high enough (presumably two 1st-round picks?) because of where they are expected to be positioned in the draft the next few years.

The Rams may not be paying a franchise quarterback, but Jared Goff’s cap number in 2019 is $8.9 million, which is a bargain, but only about $13 million behind Derek Carr’s 2019 cap number. That doesn’t explain why the Rams in 2019 will be able to pay Donald ($17.1M), Cooks ($15.2M), Gurley ($9.2M), Peters ($9.1M), and Talib ($8.0M) and still have room to acquire Mack.

The Rams could theoretically pay Goff what Carr is making in 2019 and still acquire Mack by only trimming one of their mid-level contracts. The Raiders could have easily done the same and kept Mack.

They just didn’t want to do it.

twitter: @raidersbeat

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1 thought on “Rams, With All Their Hefty Contracts, Still Went Hard After Khalil Mack

  1. Right move Rams. We’re going to beat you Monday Night and will prove your judgement right. Go Raiders!

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