Early Wednesday afternoon the Los Angeles Rams released, center, Brian Allen. The move was foreseen as Allen was unseated as the starting center before the 2023 season by Coleman Shelton. Allen’s cap number ($8 million) was the seventh highest on the team.
The move will free up nearly $5 million in cap space and carries with it $3 million in dead money, per Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic. The Rams are looking to be active this offseason in free agency and through trades. They have yet again been linked to a deal to acquire Brian Burns which stands to cost them the lion’s share of their current $27 million in cap space.
Brian Allen Released By Los Angeles Rams
Allen was a 4th-round draft pick in 2018, he is one of three players retained beyond their rookie contract in the Sean McVay era. He missed half of the 2019 season and all of 2020 due to injury and he was in and out of the lineup dealing with a variety of injuries in 2022.
Allen was the starting center for the 2021 Super Bowl-winning Los Angeles Rams.
This signals that the Rams are confident that Coleman Shelton won’t void the last year of his two-year deal signed in 2023 and test the open market. Or at the very least that they can resign Shelton. Although that could be wishful thinking, according to Over The Cap’s valuation model, Shelton could fetch $4.4 million. The Rams are currently slated to pay him just over $2 million in 2024.
That may be a necessary expenditure. With Allen gone, Shelton is the only center on the Rams roster currently.
