How much cap room do the Rams have left? $9.8 million – 4/14

Reported vs Effective Cap Space
Posted on March 31, 2013 by Jason Fitzgerald

Great question yesterday from DMB asking about “reported” cap space versus “real” or “effective” cap space. Upon reading it I realized it would be a great post topic and since I have a large Jets readership we will focus on them as an example.

There are a number of misconceptions that occur when people talk of salary cap space during this time of year. Perhaps the biggest comes from a majority of the media who say the team needs to set aside x amount of dollars for the rookie class, which in the Ramss case is ~$4.8 million. We have touched on that before but the basic consideration that is missed is that each player being signed replaces a player already under contract so the space needed is much less than the full amount. [This figure is close to 500,000 per draft choice, figuring that they replace the lowest paid members of the roster.]

Secondly you have to remember that during the offseason only 51 players count towards the cap. Once the regular season begins you have to account for 53. Not only that but you have to allocate resources for a practice squad, injured reserve replacements, injury settlements, and possible grievances. Each team also is going to want a cushion to make sure they are not forced to re-work deals in the season to remain cap compliant in the event of excessive injuries or other unexpected cap issues.

Start: $9.8 million- Reported cap room for the Rams JT’s number.

Less: ~$4.8 million- Estimated Year One Rookie Pool Allocation for Rams 6 draft picks Spotrac number
Credit ~$3.0 million (6 x .5 million for players replaced.)my number
Less: ~$1.0 million – For players 52 and 53 who will now count against the cap once the season beginsmy number
Less: ~$1.0 million – Maintaining an 8 player Practice Squad for the seasonOver the cap number

9.8 – 4.8 +3.0 -1.0 -1.0 =
5.0 + 3.0 – 1.0 -1.0 =
8.0 -2.0 = 6.0

Injuries are a part of the NFL. Every year, each NFL team puts an estimated 10 players on injured reserve for the season. Each player at vet minimum is about 600,000. The cap hit isn’t far the full year. It depends on when they were placed on IR. If they were on IR for 8 games it would be half or ~300,000
~$3..0 million is really the amount you probably want as the in-season cushion to make sure you can operate effectively and deal with injury replacements, settlements, and other emergency needs of cap dollars.
6.0 -3.0 = 3.0 extra cap space. my short cut number
The ~3.0 million extra cap space is what I figure the rams can use to sign FAs without any cap adjustments this year. This is from a post that I modified to fit the Rams. The extra salary cap dollars are for the salaries of the players replacing the players that are placed on Injured Reserve. Cause you have to count those players against your cap.

*** disclaimer*** If somebody else does the math and/or the method differently and gets a different number. I don’t care. If someone doesn’t follow my stuff. I don’t care. If I am wrong. I don’t care. This is close enough for the government work. I only did this, cause I got a bit curious as to how close my previous short cut of 3 million was and I was extremely bored this morning. 😉

http://overthecap.com/reported-vs-effective-cap-space/

• This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by Agamemnon.

Teams will sometimes carry a player on the practice for the full minimum salary to keep other teams from signing them. That will affect the salary cap.