The tumultuous BlueCo era at Chelsea has delivered another momentous twist with the news that Todd Boehly and Mark Walter are in talks to sell their shares in the club to majority owner Clearlake Capital.

No agreement is believed to be imminent, but the sale would provide a form of resolution to long-standing tensions within Chelsea’s ownership group while also potentially easing the regulatory pressure that Walter is facing in the United States.

Here is a look at the key questions surrounding this situation and what it all means for Chelsea, as well as the implications for Walter and Boehly’s flagship sports investment, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Why is this happening now?

None of the principal parties are commenting, but it is very difficult to view this development as unrelated to Walter’s unexpected sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger in a deal that valued the NBA franchise at $12.5billion (£9.2bn) last week. 

That news — just 14 months after Walter had bought a controlling interest in the Lakers from the Buss family at a then-record $10billion valuation — broke against the backdrop of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the 66-year-old billionaire’s business dealings. 

Bloomberg reported last week that Walter’s sudden sale of the Lakers was sparked by the need to raise cash to pay down loans on the books of his insurance firms at the centre of the federal probe. How much more could be raised by offloading his assumed 12.7 per cent stake in Chelsea? 

Boehly was one of Walter’s partners in his brief Lakers venture, as well as in their hugely successful ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers. From Boehly’s perspective, this could simply present a good opportunity to exit from Chelsea, an investment that has not panned out as he envisaged when he publicly fronted the BlueCo consortium which purchased the club from a sanctioned Roman Abramovich in June 2022. 

Todd Boehly, left, with Chelsea’s sporting director Paul Winstanley and Clearlake co-founder Behdad Eghbali in 2025 (Robin Jones/Getty Images)

Despite maintaining a public profile with appearances at Stamford Bridge and on stage at various business conferences, Boehly has not enjoyed functional operational control over Chelsea since 2022, with majority shareholder Clearlake Capital directing the club’s strategy and the firm’s co-founder Behdad Eghbali actively involved in all major decisions. 

Boehly’s four-year stint as chairman is also set to conclude next year with Clearlake empowered to pick his successor, potentially making it a natural endpoint for his presence at the club.

Liam Twomey

Who is Mark Walter and what is being investigated?

For a man who built a portfolio of some of the world’s most famous sports teams, Mark Walter has spent most of his 66 years on this planet flying well under the radar.

But then he sold one of those teams, the Los Angeles Lakers, in a stunning deal that took 48 hours to agree, without any of the usual armies of banks and brokers involved, and his name has not stopped popping up on screens since.

Walter at a Lakers game this year (Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)

An Iowa native, Walter got degrees in business and law before starting a career in a relatively sleepy part of the financial services industry in Chicago in the 1990s.

His big break, although nobody noticed at the time, came in 1999, when he met a member of the uber-wealthy Guggenheim clan and co-founded Guggenheim Partners, a global investment and financial advisory firm based in New York.

There, he was among the first to spot the huge, steady but unsexy amounts of money being kicked out every month by America’s massive insurance market, particularly after the 2008 financial crash, when the valuations of state-based insurance firms plummeted.

Walter and his Guggenheim protege Todd Boehly also realised that you could borrow large sums of money, secured against the dependable flow of policyholder premiums, and then invest that cash in cooler, sexier assets, such as media companies, real estate and sports teams.

The first sports team came in 2012, when, in trademark fashion, he took advantage of then-owner Frank McCourt’s financial difficulties to buy baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.15billion. And in another move that he later repeated, he did this as the lead investor in a large syndicate of big names, including Boehly, Earvin “Magic” Johnson and tennis star Billie Jean King.

Stan Kasten, Mark Walter, Magic Johnson, Peter Guber, and Todd Boehly at the Dodger Stadium in 2012 (Chris Williams/Icon SMI/Corbis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Two years later, Walter led another all-star syndicate in a failed bid for the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, losing out to Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer.

But he was not to be kept out of basketball for long, as he led a group that bought the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks later in 2014 and then, in 2021, he bought just over a quarter of the Lakers.

A year later, he teamed up with his buddy Boehly to buy into Chelsea, another distressed asset, and in 2025, he bought majority control of the Lakers in a deal that valued the team at $10billion.

At this point, the quiet man from America’s Midwest owned stakes in three of the most famous teams in the world’s biggest leagues, plus the Sparks and North America’s professional women’s ice hockey league, the PWHL. And he had barely given a single media interview in his 40-year career.

He still hasn’t but everyone wants to talk to him now because the whispers about his complex web of insurance companies, secured loans and high-profile investments, which have always been there for those who were listening closely, have become blaring sirens.

Bloomberg and the Financial Times reported that last year the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized Walter’s phone and laptop as part of a probe into his empire. A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment.

In February, two of his insurance firms received subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which specialises in white-collar crime. The firms had to confirm this news in regulatory filings in March, when they also revealed they were under a parallel investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The issue Walter faces, and has already acknowledged by his actions, is that the money that regular folk pay to insurance companies is meant to be safe, which is why the sector is more highly regulated than others. There have been too many examples in the past of disreputable types just stealing people’s premiums.

So, insurance firms are not meant to put too much of their money in any single pot — they must diversify their own risks. Likewise, they must declare if any of their investments are with affiliated companies, as that would increase the risk of a problem elsewhere in the wider group impacting the insurance firm.

Walter with President Trump at the White House after the Dodgers won the 2024 World Series (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Delaware Life, one of Walter’s companies, has already been forced to reclassify nearly $17billion of its investments as they were clearly with “affiliated” businesses in his empire, most notably a $4.1billion loan to the Dodgers’ ticketing subsidiary.

All in all, it is estimated that Walter has needed to reclassify about $20billion worth of affiliated deals, mostly loans he has secured through his insurance businesses to invest in his sports properties.

The various investigations are looking into whether he did this illegally.

In the meantime, whether he acted illegally or not, he is in a race to refinance those loans and maintain the credit ratings of his companies. As there are not many buyers for loans under investigation, he has only one real option. He needs cash and fast.

So, he has already sold the Lakers and his 12.7 per cent stake in Chelsea will be next. The big question is whether that will be enough. Nobody that The Athletic has spoken to in American sports finance circles believes it will be, so, at the very least, a stake in the Dodgers is almost certainly available, too.

Walter did not respond to messages from The Athletic seeking comment for their reporting around the story, and federal officials at the agencies conducting the probe declined to comment.

Matt Slater

Who owns what at Chelsea?

Chelsea went from a one-man kitchen to a many-cheffed banquet in early 2022, when the Russian oligarch Abramovich was jettisoned and a merry band of private equity folk took up the reins.

The £2.5billion takeover which completed in May of that year granted a majority shareholding to Eghbali and Jose E Feliciano’s Clearlake Capital which, today, owns 61.85 per cent of the shares in 22 Holdco Limited, the UK-based holding company which oversees both Chelsea and Ligue 1 side Strasbourg.

The remaining 38.15 per cent is held by Blueco 22 Holdings LP, a UK-registered limited partnership. Six partners make up that partnership: CFCB, LLC, controlled by Boehly; SME FC Holdings, LLC, controlled by Walter; Hansjorg Wyss as an individual, and two further entities affiliated with him; and Greenelite CFC, LLC, a Delaware-registered business whose controlling owner is unknown.

That 38.15 per cent is not split evenly, with only Boehly and Walter, along with Eghbali and Feliciano on the Clearlake side, listed as having a ‘significant interest’ in Chelsea under Premier League rules. It means each of Boehly and Walter beneficially own at least 10 per cent of the club, while Wyss and whomever heads Greenelite split the rest.

On the assumption Boehly and Walter own a third each of Blueco 22 Holdings LP, each would own a 12.7 per cent beneficial stake in Chelsea. In other words, a little over a quarter of the club might be about to change hands.

Chris Weatherspoon

How much might Walter and Boehly’s shares be worth?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and never more so than at Chelsea, where that £2.5billion purchase of four years ago has been followed up with enormous spending, most of it on players.

In total, as previously reported by The Athletic, funding of the BlueCo project hit £4.2billion by the end of June 2025, and more has gone in since. That June 2025 figure was split £2.9bn in equity and £1.3bn in external borrowings, including a payment-in-kind loan which is accumulating interest at heady rates.

Reporting from The Telegraph on Monday evening stated Boehly and Walter were searching for a stake sale that would value Chelsea overall at north of £5billion, a sum which seems fanciful given how things have regressed on the field in recent years and the massive costs that have been incurred in the process. Several industry valuers have recently pegged Chelsea’s worth at a little over £3bn, or not much more than the to-date equity commitment of the current owners.

There’s naturally an incentive on behalf of the sellers to pump up the price, but so, perversely, might Clearlake be reluctant to snaffle up more shares at too low a cost. Doing so would signal to the market that Chelsea aren’t worth anywhere near what the current owners hoped they would be, even just over four years into their premiership. Clearlake have no immediate desire to sell but there is a need for Chelsea’s value to appreciate sooner rather than later.

Chelsea fans protesting against the owners before a Premier League match against Southampton last year (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

What is clear is that today Chelsea are worth nowhere close to what Clearlake and other prospective buyers were told they soon might be when the club was up for sale back in spring 2022. Then, Joe Ravitch, co-founder of Raine Group, the merchant bank tasked with selling the club, said: “My guess is that Chelsea and all of the top Premier League clubs will probably be worth in excess of $10billion (£7.7bn then, £7.4bn today) in five years.”

Short of oil spurting out of the Stamford Bridge centre circle inside the next 12 months, that guess will be falling some distance south of accurate.

Chris Weatherspoon

What’s the relationship been like between Clearlake and Boehly and Walter?

The Athletic went into great detail two years ago on how both sides (Boehly and Clearlake) were looking to buy each other out as disagreements over how to run Chelsea increased tensions behind the scenes. 

This just feels like an inevitable conclusion as Clearlake have always maintained they were not going to cash in and they are the majority shareholder. 

Walter has always been more of an investor than someone heavily involved, albeit his connection is with Boehly due to their time together with the LfA Dodgers and investment firm Guggenheim Partners. 

Another member of the board representing the Clearlake side is Feliciano, but he is rarely seen at Chelsea now and he has headed the investor group which has just bought MLB side San Diego Padres.  

Jose E Feliciano watching the San Diego Padres earlier this year (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)

It has been made clear that the relationship between Clearlake and Boehly has remained a professional one despite any difference of opinion. However, when Boehly and Eghbali attend matches at Stamford Bridge, it is noticed by observers how they do not watch them together and stay in their own boxes in the West Stand.   

Simon Johnson

Hasn’t Walter just sold the LA Lakers? What does this mean for the LA Dodgers?

The news that the Lakers were being sold shocked several within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization – after all, Walter was in the process of integrating the two iconic franchises and even having two notable figures in the baseball side’s rise to dominance (president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and special assistant Farhan Zaidi) consult on the overhaul of the basketball operation.

Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten addressed the sale on Wednesday, saying, “This is a Lakers story. It’s not really a Dodgers story.” The executive said nothing is expected to change with the Dodgers and that there are no plans for the organization to sell. In that same conversation with reporters, however, Kasten said he didn’t have any information about the status of the ongoing federal investigations into Walter’s insurance companies. That can change things.

Major League Baseball’s labor strife, which likely will culminate in a lockout this winter, could be another factor as the league’s owners seek to implement a salary cap. The Dodgers are the target for much of the league’s marketing push heading into negotiations, with MLB arguing that the organization’s extreme spending and more than $1billion in deferred contracts disrupted the league’s competitive balance.

Walter welcomes Shohei Ohtani to the Dodgers in 2023 (Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

The Dodgers have been successful in Walter’s tenure but have hit new peaks on the field (with back-to-back World Series titles) and financially (earning an estimated $1billion in revenue in 2025) since the arrival of Japanese two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani. For what it’s worth, Ohtani – whose contract contains a rare “key man clause” tying him to Walter and Friedman – is not expected to go anywhere even if Walter does wind up selling the club.

Fabian Ardaya, LA Dodgers writer

What does this mean for how Chelsea operate?

Not a great deal will change to be honest. While Boehly has had a sign-off on all decisions, his input into how things are run has reduced dramatically over the years. 

Boehly had a big influence on the first transfer window following the takeover in May 2022 when he was interim sporting director. But he has taken much more of a back seat since full-time sporting directors were put in place. There are five now in Paul Winstanley, Laurence Stewart, Joe Shields, Sam Jewell and Dave Fallows. They run the sporting side of the club while Jason Gannon heads the business aspect as the president and chief operating officer. 

Out of all members of the consortium, it is Eghbali that you will see at most games and is often seen heading to the dressing room after matches at Stamford Bridge. He is a fairly regular visitor at the training ground, too. 

On buying the club, clauses were put in place that shares could not be sold to those outside the consortium for 10 years. This means only Clearlake and Wyss can buy Boehly’s or Walter’s stake. Should Clearlake increase their share from its current 61.85 per cent, it will just further cement the fact that they are the ones running the show.

Simon Johnson

Malik Willis has a chance to be one of the greatest fantasy scams in recent memory — perhaps on the level of Blake Bortles in 2015, or Daunte Culpepper in 2002.

To be fair, Willis also has a chance to emerge as a legitimate breakout star and one of the season’s most compelling stories. But failing that, he can be an incredible grift.

Almost everything we know about the current version of Willis as a passer is drawn from 89 attempts over the past two seasons in Green Bay. It’s a very small yet very encouraging sample. Willis completed 70 of his 89 passes (78.7%) with the Packers, averaging an outrageous 10.9 yards per attempt with six scores and zero picks. He was nearly flawless on deep attempts, completing 13 of 15 for 556 yards and two touchdowns. As a starter under Matt LaFleur, he went 2-1.

Again: Fantastic sample, although it was basically only three games worth of throwing.

Willis handled one series in Miami’s preseason opener against Washington over the weekend, and it went as well as anyone could have possibly hoped. He directed a 93-yard touchdown drive, completing 4-of-5 attempts. Every pass was on time and on target. His only incompletion was a well-thrown sideline ball to rookie Caleb Douglas, who failed to keep his feet inbounds. Douglas made up for the mistake soon after:

CALEB DOUGLAS ONE HANDED MADNESS OH MY GOODNESS pic.twitter.com/CmWDCVfcNk

— SleeperNFL (@SleeperNFL) August 14, 2026

We can’t get too carried away with a single productive drive against a second-string defense, of course, but it’s another data point in favor of Willis. He looks the part.

However, reviews of the Dolphins’ performance in last week’s joint practice with the Commanders were universally horrendous — particularly from reporters covering Washington. Good luck finding any league observer who believes Miami will be anything but bad this season. Willis, for all his promising traits, is still working with a receiver room full of castoffs and mid-draft rookies. It’s a challenging environment.

But as most of you already know, Willis offers more than one path to fantasy success. In six career NFL starts, he’s averaged 44.8 rushing yards per game and reached the end zone four times. He’s both an opportunistic runner and a vicious threat on designed rush attempts. It’s clear Miami intends to lean into his dual-threat talents.

And this, obviously, is where he has so much potential as a fantasy scam. Even if Miami’s passing offense never achieves consistency or competence, Willis has the rushing juice necessary to finish the season as a starting-quality fantasy option.

Let’s just consider a hypothetical season in which Willis maintains his per-game rushing average and remains healthy, but almost everything goes wrong for Miami’s passing attack. Here’s a dreadful set of potential stats, not far from a worst-case scenario: 3,150 pass yards, 19 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, 765 rushing yards, six rushing touchdowns, two lost fumbles.

A quarterback can definitely deliver such stats within the context of a three-win season. We’re talking about 185 passing yards and one passing score per game. Cam Ward finished with more passing yards last year. Fifteen interceptions might lead the league. Just a lousy individual season.

Those numbers above would also get Willis to 280.5 fantasy points, which would have made him the overall QB12 in 2025. Give him a couple hundred additional passing yards with just another touchdown or three, and suddenly we’re looking at a top-8 positional finish. If he protects the football reasonably well while rushing for 40+ yards per game, a top-five finish is in play.

So, yeah, an all-time scam season is a very real possibility. In fact, it might be the most realistic outcome for Willis. He’s absolutely buried in terms of ADP and consensus rank at the moment (QB21), making him a screaming draft value and an ideal Superflex option.

Breece Hall’s groin has seen better days

Just when Hall was beginning to look like one of the safer running back options in fantasy, he suffered a groin strain in camp. Head coach Aaron Glenn later downplayed the injury (in classic Jets fashion), but he added that he did not yet have the training staff’s evaluation. So we wait.

Braelon Allen appears to be the next man up in New York’s backfield, and he’s coming off an impressive performance in the preseason opener (4/44/1). Isaiah Davis has been sidelined by a knee issue, clearing a path for Allen. Neither backup can match Hall’s all-purpose ability, so let’s not make any silly drops just yet.

Jeremiyah Love’s ankle sprain has crept higher

Love enjoyed an excellent preseason debut that lasted entirely too long (14 touches!) and produced multiple highlights, like this gem right here:

Jeremiyah Love hurdle alert! 🚨

Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/1yanqBKZY1

— NFL (@NFL) August 14, 2026

You were probably already aware that he emerged from the game with an ankle issue. On Sunday, we learned it was in fact a high-ankle sprain, an injury that will erase whatever plans the team had for him over the remainder of his preseason. Love’s status for opening week is not yet in doubt, so please don’t bail on the hyper-talented rookie. He showed us more than enough in a single exhibition game. The injury should be sufficient to halt his rise up fantasy draft boards and perhaps allow him to settle at a reasonable price.

Jordyn Tyson expected to miss two months with hamstring injury

Not much positivity in the Monday news feed, unfortunately. Tyson has a complicated injury history that includes multiple hamstring strains, and his most recent issue will reportedly sideline him for two months. It’s a brutal blow for the New Orleans passing game; Tyson was thriving in camp, already an indispensable weapon. We should probably elevate Juwan Johnson and Devaughn Vele on this news, but it’s never really helpful to anyone when an offense becomes less dynamic and dangerous. Alas.

Tyson tumbles to the fringes of draft-worthiness in fantasy leagues of standard size. If you play in a format with limited IR spots, this is not a problem you need to take on. Within the rookie receiver class, he should now fall well below Carnell Tate, KC Concepcion and De’Zhaun Stribling, to name just three. Consider Tyson to be a member of the Denzel Boston-Makai Lemon-Caleb Douglas-Ja’Kobi Lane tier.

And speaking of Lane …

Ja’Kobi Lane’s hype train has no brakes

Please enjoy this soothing video of Lane one-handing a series of soft throws:

Ja’Kobi Lane is utterly mesmerizing #ravens #nfl pic.twitter.com/7QZI1J1OBY

— Pete Gilbert (@WBALPete) August 15, 2026

Life is surely much easier as a receiver when you have 10.5-inch hands like Lane. This gentleman has exploded in camp like a supernova, and it carried over to his first preseason game, as he caught three passes on as many targets for 38 yards and one spike. Adam Schefter is tweeting his highlights, so you know he’s truly arrived.

For now, Lane remains a late-round lottery ticket, but his rise is ongoing. He might reach the Stribling Zone before the calendar flips to September.

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Rams are through training camp and one preseason game. They are about three weeks from boarding a plane to Melbourne, Australia, to kick off a season with Super Bowl aspirations against the San Francisco 49ers.

Some parts of the roster are coming into clearer focus, while other questions are beginning to emerge. And readers came with plenty of questions on the No. 3 wide receiver role, the speed on offense, Puka Nacua’s contract situation and more.

Questions have been edited for length and clarity.

Who’s your guess for WR3 after training camp? Is it gonna be by committee or one of the tight ends? — Heartsynapse

Has Konata Mumpfield shown any improvement in the offseason? Between him, Jordan Whittington and CJ Daniels, is there a race for WR3? Or does someone clearly lead? — Jaime D.

I continue to believe the No. 3 receiver role will be a committee approach. That’s a reality of the players they have, but also of the situation they created. If the Rams wanted something more, I think they would have gone after a higher-octane receiver either in free agency, trades or the draft.

Last year’s experience with Tutu Atwell becoming a non-factor on a $10 million deal was a lesson in how quickly that role can disappear, especially with the shift to three-tight end sets, and they realize that many decorated receivers won’t gladly sign up for that kind of reduced role.

I see a couple of clear hierarchies along the way: Mumpfield is the backup on the perimeter if Davante Adams were to get injured, and Whittington is the backup in an inside-outside role if Nacua were to get hurt. When they’re both healthy, I think we’ll see specialized roles that play out as a committee. Whittington and Xavier Smith offer some yards-after-catch ability in different ways, and will be active on game days because of their special teams roles, provided Smith wins the punt return job.

The tight ends should be a committee in their own right, with increased use of three-tight end sets now that it’s a full-season approach rather than a midseason shift. But I believe Terrance Ferguson will emerge from that group as the player worthy of an every-week, game-planned role. The best version of this offense will have Ferguson leading the tight ends in catches and yards, and finishing third on the team in both categories behind Adams and Nacua.

Is the lack of a deep threat, field-stretching, speed-burner receiver a significant shortcoming? — Steve E.

In many offenses, I would say it is, as I’m a big believer that perimeter speed works to lighten boxes and provides the ultimate payoff in the best play-action moments. But last year’s Rams showed they can lead the league in scoring despite not having that true speed element in their pass-catching tree.

It’s a worthy conversation this year regarding potential regression, because that often comes for units that finish No. 1. It could become a bigger need if Adams, who turns 34 in December, were to miss more time or show any decline. The Rams are big on evolving to avoid complacency, and I’ve noticed such a focus on the pieces they have adding an extra speed element to their games: Nacua has slimmed down noticeably this offseason, Blake Corum and Kyren Williams have turned up the offseason workouts to build speed, and Ferguson also trimmed some body fat.

They know they can’t count on every play design and, in particular, the three-tight end approach to catch the league as off-guard as they did last year. And the playoffs reinforced the need for more explosive plays.

Without a prototypical outside burner, the hope is that the explosion comes more often in the middle of the field, with Ferguson stretching the seams against heavier personnel and Williams and Corum working the “stiff ankle” approaches they’ve spent the offseason building to break more chunk runs.

This offense probably doesn’t have a player who will take it 70 yards on a single play very often, but they want to own the 15-plus-yard plays while remaining an elite red zone team with the presence of play action out of three-tight end sets and with how unguardable Adams is in short areas as the single receiver on the field.

Were there any players or aspects of the team that concerned you during camp? — Chauncey Telese

The starting offense and defense continue to look stacked, and we’ll see on special teams, but I continue to have one concern with the roster that has only grown through camp: offensive line depth.

The Rams have lost arguably their two best backup linemen to injuries. Justin Dedich has yet to suit up after suffering a cut on his hand in early July, and he was the team’s top interior backup. Third-round rookie Keagen Trost suffered a hamstring injury in Saturday’s preseason opener that is expected to keep him out for a few weeks, potentially threatening the start of the season, and he was the team’s backup right tackle.

That leaves David Quessenberry as the remaining tackle depth option while Trost is out. Though he has 30 career starts, the most recent came in 2023, and he’ll turn 36 later this month. Beaux Limmer is the top interior backup option right now.

The Rams are waiting to hear whether left tackle Alaric Jackson will face a second suspension under the league’s personal conduct policy. He missed one game last season in Atlanta, and edge pressure wrecked that game and brought a rare three-interception performance for Matthew Stafford.

Offensive lines are important to every team, and few feel they have great depth. But it’s worth monitoring for the Rams, with a 38-year-old pocket quarterback with a degenerative back issue. The heavy play-action nature of the offense does help the line in pass protection, but it also asks Stafford to turn his back to the defense on a given snap, so the protection will need to hold up to protect what matters more than anything to this team: protecting No. 9.

Would you say it’s a matter of time before the Rams give Puka Nacua a contract extension? — Seth D.

I think it’s a matter of time until Nacua lands a monstrous extension. I’m not quite at the point of predicting that will come from the Rams, but I know that’s definitely everyone’s hope.

What’s important here is understanding that Nacua’s place on an extension will naturally go beyond just re-signing a great player at a random position. As a superstar wide receiver, he is trending to be the face of the team he signs with, and that would be especially true in Los Angeles, given that Stafford and Adams likely won’t be here for much, or potentially any, of that new extension.

When you add in the need for Nacua to be the go-to offensive force for a very inexperienced quarterback in Ty Simpson when that time comes, it becomes a conversation about more than just the otherworldly play he offers. Especially in a Sean McVay culture that believes the biggest contracts and investments create a message of what they want younger players to become in order to chase the same types of rewards.

The Rams believe in Nacua as a person, and they are encouraged by some of the steps he’s taken this offseason, including a stint at a holistic care facility, tough conversations with family members and sessions with the team therapist.

As of now, this is still all part of a progression rather than an end point. And until his civil situation is resolved surrounding his biting incident with a woman on New Year’s Eve and any potential discipline that could come from the NFL as a result of it, they just see more steps to unfold than what has transpired so far.

It’s an interesting situation because the cost on Nacua is likely to rise from here, given how the salary cap and superstar receiver market rises each year. The Rams know if they don’t pay Nacua, another team will, regardless of off-the-field concerns.

Each of the past two offseasons has featured a $40 million average annual deal at the position, first with Ja’Marr Chase at $40.3 million annually last year and then with Jaxon Smith-Njigba at $42.2 million annually this offseason. The Rams likely could have matched Smith-Njigba’s deal for Nacua this spring, given that the two had nearly identical seasons last year.

But for such a massive investment, it’s worth it to them to become that much more certain that it’s the right move for their future and their culture. That’s still the hope for everyone, but it’s going to take an ongoing pattern that includes handling the pressures of games in-season in such a pressure-packed year.