The Rams haven't found a taker for Nick Foles.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016
With Jared Goff in the fold, Rams still must subtract quarterback
By Nick Wagoner

The Rams haven’t found a taker for Nick Foles.

LOS ANGELES — With the 2016 NFL draft complete, the Los Angeles Rams have four quarterbacks on the roster. They won’t carry that many this season, which means somebody has to go.

The obvious candidate is veteran Nick Foles. The Rams hoped to trade him for a late-round pick during the draft, but couldn’t. When the draft ended, coach Jeff Fisher said there was nothing new on that front.

“No, nothing to add,” Fisher said. “There’s speculation, but nothing to add.”

For now, the Rams quarterback group includes No. 1 draft pick Jared Goff, Case Keenum, Sean Mannion and Foles. Keenum is likely still the “starter” as Goff gets acclimated, but it’s still widely expected that Goff will eventually take over the job, probably in time for the season opener. Mannion is entering his second season after the Rams used a third-round pick on him in 2015. Ideally, Mannion could take over as the No. 2 quarterback at some point in the near future.

All of this leaves Foles on the outside looking in. The apparent lack of interest in Foles during the draft perhaps wasn’t a surprise after 15 quarterbacks were taken in the draft. For comparison’s sake, only seven quarterbacks were drafted in 2015. Essentially, every team that had a need for a quarterback seemed to draft one, which made it difficult for the Rams to move Foles.

Beyond that, teams aren’t often in the business of trading for a quarterback who could be released. The Rams hoped that multiple teams would be in the market for Foles, which would force one to flip a pick for him. That didn’t happen, though the Rams could still potentially find a suitor willing to give up a future pick for him.

Foles’ price certainly isn’t prohibitive after the Rams already paid his $6 million roster bonus. Any team trading for him would only need to take on his $1.75 million base salary. Could that be enough to entice a team to offer a seventh-round pick next year? So far it hasn’t been and if it doesn’t sometime soon, the Rams might have to do what seemed so unlikely when they were signing him to a contract extension almost a year ago: Release him.