3 free agents Rams should make room for after Matthew Stafford trade

1. DE Romeo Okwara

The Rams will likely have to replace Leonard Floyd, who will hit free agency off a big 2020 season (10.5 sacks, 19 quarterback hits, 11 tackles for loss). They had the second-most sacks in the league (53), and Floyd accounted for a big chunk.

Okwara set a career-high with 10 sacks this season, with career-bests in quarterback hits (18), tackles for loss (11) and forced fumbles (three). He also had 7.5 sacks in 2018, with a relative dud in 2019 as he missed two games and didn’t play quite as much (1.5 sacks, 10 quarterback hits). This year he played two-thirds of the defensive snaps for the Lions, while playing a lot on special teams (45 percent, in the most Matt Patricia thing ever).

Okwara will turn 26 in June, and Spotrac has his market value at $10.1 million on a prescribed three-year deal. The first number is surely going to be bridge too far for the Rams, without some significant accounting gymnastics and/or a notable move or two to drop or get rid of cap numbers. He’s also a bit of a wild card, with 2020 serving as an outlier or red flag in some deeper pressure metrics compared to the rest of his career.

The range of outcomes for Okwara on the open market feels wide, from someone giving him a huge multi-year deal to having to settle for a cheaper one-year pact as the salary cap drops. But if the price is right, as it will have to be, Okwara looks like a fit for the Rams to fill a void coming off the edge.