At the start of this week, the Rams were the only team in the league that hadn’t signed any draft picks. Today, the Rams announced that they’ve agreed to terms with all of their picks.
It’s no accident that the Rams got all their rookie deals done at once, just as offseason work is coming to an end: As head coach Jeff Fisher explained it, part of the offseason work the Rams do with their rookies is giving them “Financial Planning 101" to prepare them for suddenly becoming very wealthy young men. The Rams wisely don’t want to give rookies signing bonuses until they’ve also given those rookies some advice about how to invest those signing bonuses.
Hopefully, that means No. 8 overall pick Tavon Austin has learned to put away most of the $7.6 million signing bonus he’s going to receive. Austin noted last month that after he became a first-round draft pick, people started coming out of the woodwork asking him for money.
Austin is the second Top 10 pick to sign, following Detroit’s Ezekiel Ansah.