Rams General Manager Les Snead referred to what his team is undergoing as a “remodel” rather than a “rebuild.” He mentioned quarterback Matthew Stafford, wide receiver Cooper Kupp and defensive tackle Aaron Donald as “pillars” and “weight-bearing walls.”
Cornerback Jalen Ramsey, wide receiver Allen Robinson and linebacker Leonard Floyd conspicuously were absent from Snead’s list. Snead was asked whether the Rams are seeking to trade the three players.
“I’m going to keep the specifics of those in-house because time will tell,” Snead said. “I know we’ve communicated with a lot of our players, those included. We’re trying to assess situations, figure out how to get under the cap, what’s the best way to do that. In this year, it’s been interesting with those players. It’s based on probably the dynamics of the league.
“We’ve had calls on a lot of our players, probably other places trying to figure out what are we doing big picture and things like that. It’s been a busy offseason discussing players. The nice thing is other teams would like to have a lot of our players, but at this point we don’t want to give away all of our good players.”
Snead said the Rams have “probably taken calls on nine players” this offseason. He would not say whether Stafford was one of the nine, but he surely was.
“Y’all can figure out the rumors of them,” Snead said. “Usually it’s some of your better players. I can say every now and then you get a surprise and someone might be interested in one of your younger players. I always give the example, in the past, [offensive tackle] Joe Noteboom was always one. We got calls on him every year based on him being our third tackle and other teams thought he could be their starting tackle. So I’ve given that example in the past. But I’ll keep the sensitivity of the specifics in-house until we get to next week and see how all this plays out.”
The Rams are $16 million over the 2023 salary cap before the release of linebacker Bobby Wagner, which will save them $5 million.