All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey has been traded to the Los Angeles Rams, according to a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
The price to get Ramsey from the Jacksonville Jaguars, per Schefter, is a first-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft and first- and fourth-round picks in 2021.
Reports of Ramsey requesting to be traded surfaced in mid-September, with ESPN’s Josina Anderson reporting at the time that the Vikings were among the teams that had made “substantive inquiries” about the 24-year-old star.
At the rate the Vikings are going this year, a first-round pick in next year’s draft would likely fall in the bottom half of the first round. So a mid-to-late first-round pick plus first- and- fourth-round selections in 2021 would’ve been what Minnesota would’ve needed to give up to match an offer similar to the Rams’.
But it wasn’t quite that simple.
Because the Vikings have virtually no salary cap space, they would’ve needed to shed salary by either including a player in a trade for Ramsey, or sending a player with a hefty contract to another team. For example, Minnesota could’ve traded cornerback Xavier Rhodes’ $14 million average annual salary (through 2023) in order to clear enough cap space to bring in Ramsey.
That’s precisely what the Rams did earlier Tuesday when they traded cornerback Marcus Peters to the Ravens for a future draft pick and the lesser contract of linebacker Kenny Young.
