Payroll report

USA Today appears to have updated its NFL salaries database to include this season. I find this one of the best and most useful features of any online sports coverage. Click here to for the Rams' salary database going back to 2000.

Several interesting things jump out reviewing the salary information.

* Marc Bulger is the second-highest paid player in the NFL. He earns $17,502,040 this season. That's not the team record, though. Orlando Pace earned $18,000,000 in 2005 ($15M in bonuses), and still has the highest base salary for a season, $6,000,000 in 2004.

* How many of these guys are going to make the Pro Bowl this year? Dwight Freeney, Bulger, Leonard Davis, Gaines Adams, Robert Geathers, Corey Redding, Derrick Dockery, Reggie Bush, Chris Dielman, Larry Johnson. Freeney would, if he weren't out for the season; who else? Maybe Dielman?

Those are the ten highest-paid players in the NFL, and maybe 2 or 3 of them will be in this year's Pro Bowl.

* The Rams' second-highest-paid player is Drew Bennett. $9,505,400. Granted, his $7.5M signing bonus greatly skews this statistic, but at his current pace, even factoring in for the two games he missed due to injury, Bennett's going to collect $264,000 PER CATCH in 2007. (Randy McMichael projects out as a MUCH more economical $118,500 a catch.)

* Then there's the part I really shouldn't have paid attention to. Compare '07's total payroll to '06's. It's $4 million less. So let me get this straight. As a "small-market" team, the Rams got $5 million after last season from the NFL's profit-sharing agreement. They're paying their players $4 million less than last year. Georgia bought a new house.

AND THEY RAISED MY TICKETS TEN BUCKS A GAME??!??!? FOR A TEAM THAT'LL BE LUCKY TO FINISH AS HIGH AS 3-13??!??!?

And they wonder why they're having difficulty selling out games.