Do not expect anyone in the Los Angeles Rams' front office to send any holiday cards to their counterparts in Seattle anytime soon. The two franchises already have a tense rivalry on the field and now things have ratcheted up a notch after the Seahawks elected to make Jaxon Smith-Njigba the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL.
In fairness to Seattle, their decision to hand Smith-Njigba a four-year, $168 million contract was not made to damage their arch rivals. Instead, it was simply the price of doing business for the Seahawks. Smith-Njigba is one of the top receivers in the game, which positioned him to reset the market at his position. The Seahawks needed to pay him a serious premium to keep him in the fold.
It's fair to wonder whether the timing of Seattle's contract offer to Smith-Njigba was designed to beat the Rams' efforts to lock in their own star wide receiver. Puka Nacua is also in the last year of his contract. Officials in Los Angeles know they need to pay him at the top of the market to keep him in the fold. The Seahawks beating them to sign their own premier wide receiver likely will force the Rams to beat Smith-Njigba's record setting contract to retain Nacua.
How much will the Rams pay Puka Nacua?
The big question now is how far above the Smith-Njigba deal the Rams will need to go to ink Nacua. Officials in Los Angeles might try to offer Nacua a longer-term deal to help keep his annual salary down a bit. It's unlikely that Nacua and his representatives will truly give Los Angeles much of a discount in that regard.
Five years seems like the ideal term for Nacua. He's a physical player which does put him at more risk of age-related decline that a more finesse based receiver like Smith-Njigba. The Rams should not balk at paying Nacua through the rest of his 20s but going too far into his 30s is a risk the franchise should avoid.
Smith-Njigba's average salary figure of $42 million is the mark Nacua should be looking to shatter. No one should be surprised to hear exhorbitant numbers like $50 million per year bandied about as negotiations start to get going in earnest.
That's a nice anchor for Nacua's team to start talks with, but the Rams are not going to blow the receiver market away with his contract. Instead, look for a deal to come in that gets him just over Smith-Njigba's number with an extra year on the term. That would be a nice win for Nacua and his team.
Something like a five-year deal at $44 million per season feels right. Giving a wide receiver a deal that could be up to $220 million per season would help the player win the press conference. It's also a salary the Rams can live with as they pivot into their post-Matthew Stafford era. The number might surprise some fans but it's simply the cost of doing business in the modern NFL.