Joe Noteboom has started 23 games in his career, playing both left tackle and guard in his five seasons with the Rams. But despite being the team’s highest-paid offensive lineman at $13.3 million per year, he still hasn’t secured a starting spot up front.
He was competing at left tackle with Alaric Jackson and most recently, he shifted to right guard where he’s been battling Tremayne Anchrum Jr. For the rest of the week, though, he won’t be competing at either spot.
Sean McVay said after the Rams’ joint practice with the Raiders on Wednesday that Noteboom is “dealing with a little something right now” and won’t be practicing for the rest of the week. McVay refused to elaborate on the matter, saying, “I don’t have any more information than that right now.” He only said that Noteboom did individual drills but was held out of the team portion of practice.
With the way McVay vaguely described Noteboom’s absence, it’s hard not to speculate about what could be going on. Did he suffer a new injury? Did he have a setback in his rehab from a torn Achilles? Or, are the Rams trying to trade him?
It seems unlikely that Los Angeles would try to move its highest-paid offensive lineman but if there isn’t a starting spot for Noteboom, he’ll be a very expensive backup to keep on the roster; he’s making $13.3 million annually and after having his deal restructured this offseason, he has a cap hit of $6.5 million in 2023 and $20 million in 2024.
Here’s what McVay said when asked if it’s hard for Noteboom to miss a joint practice with the Raiders, which was an important day of practice for everyone. Again, he didn’t say Noteboom has an injury. He just wants him to focus on what he can control and that Noteboom “wants to be able to be out here.”
“It is, but I think the biggest thing is we want to focus on the things that we can control,” McVay said. “I know Joe wants to be able to be out here. He’s had an outstanding camp. I’ve been so pleased with his ability to play tackle and guard for us. But I think he’s putting all the work in and that’s all you can do. There’s some things that occur sometimes on the field that it’s like, man, that’s an unfortunate thing. It’s just a little bit of a setback. We’ll hopefully get him out here sooner than later. But we don’t want to waste our emotional energy on stuff that we can’t control and he’s done a great job of that and that’s important.”
McVay has never been great about openly discussing injuries and being completely honest about them (Todd Gurley, anyone?), but that’s because he doesn’t have to. And at this point in the offseason, he doesn’t have to disclose injuries the way he does during the regular season when there’s an injury report.
If the Rams were to trade Noteboom, they would save $1.5 million in cap space this year, $5 million in 2024 and $10 million in 2025. If that doesn’t sound like a move the Rams would strongly consider, I don’t know what does. After all, they’re focused on clearing money in 2024 and 2025.
It’s entirely possible Noteboom is just banged up right now, but McVay’s ambiguity raise questions about what might actually be going on with the veteran lineman.
