The ESSENTIAL Football Show 
Top 51 Cap Space (per Spotrac): 2026: $16.8 million | 2027: $64.9 million | 2028: $232.0 million
Draft Picks: 2027: 2, 4-6 | 2028: 1, 3-7, CLE 7
Football Decision Makers: GM Les Snead | HC Sean McVay | OC Nathan Scheelhaase | DC Chris Shula | ST Bubba Ventrone
State of the Team
As I glance over my current depth chart for the Los Angeles Rams - a depth chart that may soon include the name “Aaron Donald” once again - I find myself struck by how many good players are on this team.
That’s a bit of a surprise; what with the presence of Matthew Stafford, Myles Garrett, Puka Nacua, Trent McDuffie, Davante Adams, and Kobie Turner on this roster, I expected the “blue chips” to pop off the screen. Those colors are there, but what’s really remarkable is how many quality starters the Rams have to fill out the roster around them.
Los Angeles is down a few valuable draft picks in the coming seasons, but for a team that has been wheeling and dealing the way they have this offseason, the franchise is on solid footing heading into the future; they will need to replace some older players, and Puka Nacua looms largest among the young standouts on this roster who have yet to sign an extension, but there is money available to do that, and the possibility of moving some young talent to recoup draft capital. We won’t spend a lot of time on quarterback Ty Simpson, the 13th pick in this year’s draft, who is unlikely to play this year, but in the event Stafford moves on, Los Angeles will have a cost-controlled option at the position. Despite the polarizing draft opinions on Simpson, the Rams obviously think he has talent, and while the J.J. McCarthy Minnesota situation is a reminder that organizations with great quarterback coaches don’t bat 1000%, the combination of roster talent, cap space, and quarterback options should allow GM Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay to continue fielding competitive teams for the foreseeable future.
All that’s for another day; for now, the focus is on a roster that has the potential to be one of the better teams in NFL history.
Offense
The case for the Rams offense to be elite is fairly easy to make, as they were elite last season; they wound up losing the game, but Matthew Stafford’s performance against Seattle in the NFC Championship was some of the more impressive quarterbacking I can remember watching. The 1st overall draft pick from 2009, Stafford still seems to have every bit of his arm strength, and his approach is every bit as aggressive as it’s ever been.
Up front, left tackle Alaric Jackson and left guard Steve Avila are two “solid” players closer to being “plus” than dropping down - that pair is certainly a “plus” in the run game - and right guard Kevin Dotson also carries a purple tag. Coleman Shelton isn’t a world-beater at center, but he does an adequate job in this system, and right tackle Warren McClendon is a functional player on a cost-controlled deal who could take another step after seeing his first extended action as a starter last season. There are question marks if any of the starters go down - Beaux Limmer has shown he can be a functional center, but the backup guards and tackles don’t inspire a lot of confidence - but as far as the starting five goes, the Rams should get a high level of performance, particularly because McVay does such a great job of scheming to the group’s strengths and balancing the offense.
The one indispensable skill player is Puka Nacua, who firmly established himself as a no-doubt elite receiver last season. Nacua’s ability to make plays at every level of the field and to play through contact are outstanding, and he’s shown he can do it in the biggest moments against the best defenders. He pairs well with Davante Adams, who was a potent red-zone threat last year, but despite Adams’s numbers, this is not a 1/1a situation; Adams can still contribute (clearly), but if Nacua went down, I think it would be tough for Adams to replicate his production, and the options to step in behind them are underwhelming.
The Rams do have depth at running back with Kyren Williams and Blake Corum - Williams remains one of the most consistent backs in the league, and there’s not much (or any) drop-off from him to Corum carrying the ball - and at tight end, where they added Max Klare in the second round to go along with Colby Parkinson, Tyler Higbee, Terrance Ferguson, and Davis Allen, who all played notable roles for this offense last season.
It’s the NFL, and nothing’s guaranteed, but if Father Time hasn’t caught up to Matthew Stafford, and Puka Nacua is on the field, this should be one of the NFL’s better offenses in 2026.
Defense
The Rams were, on the whole, a fairly good defense in 2025, and after they added two former Kansas City cornerbacks in Trent McDuffie (trade) and Jaylen Watson (free agent), Los Angeles looked like a surefire Top 10 defense with a shot to get into the Top 5.
Then they traded for Myles Garrett.
The evaluation on Garrett isn’t too complicated, but it’s probably worth repeating as he heads into his new environment; Garrett is THE physical prototype for an NFL edge defender, a player whose quickness and movement skills are simply unbelievable for man of his size, and after setting the NFL single-season sack record last season, he could very well go down as the best defender in NFL history.
And not only is he still in his prime, his arrival might bring back Aaron Donald on the inside.
Setting Donald aside, Los Angeles is still set to be outstanding on defense. They already have Kobie Turner and Braden Fiske as defensive tackles who can generate interior pass rush, and Poona Ford is back to set the point for the interior in the run game. The Garrett trade cost them Jared Verse, but Byron Young really came on as arguably a “plus” player last year, and both Desjuan Johnson and Josaiah Stewart have flashed production as rotational players.
The Rams want to live out of nickel and dime personnel, and they have plenty of options to do it; Kam Curl and Quentin Lake headline a group of smart, solid players at the safety position, where Kamren Kinchens and Jaylen McCollough are both capable of stepping in to fill a variety of roles, whether it’s in the slot, at deep safety, or as a pseudo-linebacker in a sub package. Unlike last season, the Rams should be consistently competitive in coverage with McDuffie and Watson on the outside, and if they want to play McDuffie in the slot, where I grade him as an “elite” player rather than the “plus” he is on the outside, the Rams can do more to help Emmanuel Forbes or any other corner who steps in.
The linebacker room isn’t going to drive their success, but Nate Landman surprised with a solid season coming off some less inspiring film, and Omar Speights can run, even if he doesn’t bring much size. Given the emphasis on sub packages, and the ability to drop down to one off-ball backer in a lot of packages, this isn’t an overwhelming problem, but it is unlikely we see any sort of field-tilting play from the second level of this defense; if this is going to be an all-time group, it will be the Hall of Famer(s?) up front driving that success.
Final Takeaways
It’s the NFL, and things rarely come together seamlessly. Players get injured, they decline, and that messy business of “being human” and trying to get 50+ players on one page is a challenging endeavor.
That said, this is the first team in NFL history to feature the returning MVP and Defensive Player of the Year on the same squad. Their head coach is among the best in the league, and the roster around the superstar players is about as complete and deep as one can reasonably hope for in the NFL.
Seattle’s defense still looms large in the Pacific Northwest, but it’s only the most unreasonable of fans who would say last year’s 3-game series decisively showed one team was better than the other. The Rams and Seahawks stood out as the two best teams in the NFL last year, and while I expect Seattle to be right there again, you have to be willfully disagreeable to suggest that adding a Hall of Fame defensive end (Garrett), the (now) highest-paid cornerback in the NFL (McDuffie), and a second outside corner making $17 million per year after drawing significant free agent interest (Watson).
Nothing’s guaranteed, but it’s pretty easy to pencil the Rams in as a Super Bowl contender in 2026.