Les Snead is widely viewed as one of the better general managers in the NFL. Since joining the Rams, he’s helped turn the franchise around after years of ineptitude and sub-.500 play. He’s done so with an aggressive approach to roster building, opting to acquire proven players via trade rather than adding assets with first- and second-round picks.

It’s paid off with the Rams reaching the Super Bowl last season, but after hitting a rough patch in 2019, one aspect of the Rams’ aggressive philosophy warrants criticism.

Snead and the front office have been more than generous when it comes to paying players before necessary. It’s an approach teams across the NFL have taken, attempting to get ahead of the market by extending their top players before they can field offers from other teams in free agency.

On paper, it’s a smart way to build a roster and secure a team’s future. But for the Rams, they’ve made this mistake too many times.

Two of the most glaring examples happened just a few years ago. Before the 2016 season kicked off, the Rams signed Tavon Austin to a four-year, $42 million extension. He still had two years left on his contract, but the Rams wanted to reward him and his 1,133 career receiving yards with a lucrative new deal.

Austin was traded during the 2018 draft, barely contributing in his one season with Sean McVay at the helm.

They did the same thing one year later with Alec Ogletree, giving him a four-year extension worth $42.75 million. Ogletree was set to hit free agency the following year and was just an average linebacker for the Rams, but the front office saw him as a key piece on defense…

…for about five months.

Ogletree was traded the following March, leaving the Rams to take on $6.4 million in dead money in 2018.

The Rams didn’t learn from those mistakes and continued to hand out contract extensions before necessary in the last couple of years.

In 2018, they signed Todd Gurley to a $60 million extension despite him having two years left on his rookie deal. His new contract hasn’t even kicked in yet, and will run for four more years until 2023.

With the way he’s been used on offense, there’s no doubt signing him to such a massive contract was a mistake, based on the timing of it all. If the Rams had waited a year and evaluated him for another season, they almost certainly would not have given Gurley the deal they did.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20, but giving a running back with a significant knee injury in the past all that money two years early was almost destined to fail.

Then came Jared Goff’s deal, the granddaddy of them all. After a year of declaring that they were going to be patient with the young quarterback and would eventually give him a huge extension, the Rams faked everyone out and signed him to a contract with the most guaranteed money in NFL history. Goff’s deal is for four years and is worth $134 million with $110 million guaranteed. He will have the largest cap hit in the league in 2020.

Goff has done nothing this season to make the Rams look smart for once again doling out a monster contract two years before they had to; Goff was under contract through 2020 and never threatened to hold out publicly.

Los Angeles’ front office has come under heavy criticism for signing Goff when it did, especially after seeing him regress to near-2016 form with 11 touchdown passes, 12 interceptions and 10 fumbles (five lost) in 11 games this season. And like Gurley, Goff’s contract extension hasn’t even gone on the books yet. It will in 2020 with a cap hit of $36 million.

In addition to those contracts, the Rams also made Rob Havenstein one of the highest-paid tackles in the league last year with a $32.5 million extension. Los Angeles looked smart for that contract after Havenstein improved in 2018, but he experienced a sharp decline in 2019.

Possibly the most surprising of all was the $29 million contract Tyler Higbee got from the Rams this year, despite Gerald Everett being on the roster. Higbee has never been a huge part of the passing game, and this season, he has just 26 catches for 212 yards and one touchdown. The Rams could have easily waited to sign Higbee, or simply let him walk in free agency next offseason and moved forward with Everett.

Brandin Cooks’ contract doesn’t look great right now, either, owning the fourth-highest cap hit on the team in 2020 at $16.8 million. Just with the four highest-paid players on the roster – Goff, Aaron Donald, Cooks and Gurley – the Rams have $95.1 million on the books next season.

They’re not in great shape cap-wise, and that’s before even mentioning the need to re-sign Jalen Ramsey next year, and likely Cooper Kupp, John Johnson and Everett the following year. Signing Gurley, Goff and Higbee when they did was questionable, and it doesn’t shine a very bright light on the front office.