St. Louis Rams rank 170th in ESPN salary survey/Wagoner

[RamBill]

St. Louis Rams rank 170th in ESPN salary survey
By Nick Wagoner

http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/18649/st-louis-rams-rank-170th-in-espn-salary-survey

The St. Louis Rams rank 170th out of 333 international teams surveyed in an ESPN/SportingIntelligence report revealing the sports franchises that spend the most on their players. That represents a drop of 24 spots from their rank of No. 146 a year ago.

The Rams average annual salary of $1.9 million per player is down 6.3 percent from last season, and the team's total payroll of $100.8 million ranks 63rd overall.

Because of the NFL's salary cap and the number of players on each roster, it should come as little surprise that the NFL teams are all clumped together in a group between Nos. 124 and 176. The Miami Dolphins have the highest annual average salary at $2.3 million while the New York Jets have the lowest at $1.7 million.

Looking ahead to 2015, the Rams three highest-paid players in terms of cap value are scheduled to be defensive end Robert Quinn ($16.74 million), defensive end Chris Long ($12.5 million) and tight end Jared Cook ($8.3 million).

Subtracting quarterback Sam Bradford and adding Nick Foles represented the biggest shift in pay for a starting position on the roster as Bradford was scheduled to count $16.58 million against the cap. Trading Bradford resulted in $3.595 million in dead money but saved the Rams almost $13 million in base salary. Foles is scheduled to count just $1.542 million against this year's cap.

 

[Akrasian]

And yet the Rams are supposedly close to the cap. And still might sign a vet or two - though it wouldn't shock me if they saved the room to cover for injuries, rather than have to redo contracts mid-season and push cap hits into future years.

 

[CGI_Ram]

With the salary cap; this article is sort of... meaningless.

At least our Rams have always spent at the cap. Can't really ask for more than that... and they have a high coaching payroll.

 

[LumberTubs]

I see Ross County at the bottom of that list @ScotsRam.

This is a pretty meaningless and pointless exercise and including any salary capped teams means you're comparing apples and pears.

 

[ScotsRam]

I see Ross County at the bottom of that list @ScotsRam.

This is a pretty meaningless and pointless exercise and including any salary capped teams means you're comparing apples and pears.

First and last time you'll ever see Ross County and the Rams on the same list!

FWIW, Ross County don't routinely publish salary details. They've extrapolated this average from our entire staff budget, so it includes admin staff, groundskeepers etc as well. The data is seriously flawed from the Scottish Premier League so I'd assume there will be flaws throughout the whole list. I wouldn't take it too seriously.

 

[Force16X]

With the salary cap; this article is sort of... meaningless.

At least our Rams have always spent at the cap. Can't really ask for more than that... and they have a high coaching payroll.

arent teams required to spend within a specific % of the salary cap as well ??

 

[LumberTubs]

arent teams required to spend within a specific % of the salary cap as well ??

There is what's referred to as a salary cap floor whereby teams have to spend at least a percentage of the salary cap but I think it's averaged out over a number of years so a team could spend less than that percentage in one season as long as the average over 3 or 4 years (whatever this period is) is greater than the percentage (again whatever that is).

Edit: a quick google search suggests it's 89% and the period is 4 years

 

[FrantikRam]

Not just that, but if there are players that you're still paying but are not on your team, that's going to hurt you here. The highest NFL team on this list is the best at managing dead money, while the lowest is the worst.

Because obviously all teams spend close to the same regarding salary cap