{"id":900433,"date":"2026-05-25T01:24:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T01:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/900433\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T01:24:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T01:24:24","slug":"the-rams-highest-paid-undrafted-rookie-is-a-tight-end-also","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/900433\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rams highest-paid undrafted rookie is a tight end also"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Los Angeles Rams already have the deepest tight end room in the NFL with five players who are a lock to make a 53-man roster, whether it\u2019s L.A. or somewhere else, but it turns out that Sean McVay\u2019s obsession with the position doesn\u2019t stop there. As details emerged about the Rams\u2019 undrafted signing bonuses on Sunday, it was revealed that tight end Dan Villari received $45,000 guaranteed, the most of any undrafted player on the team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">That\u2019s three times as much as the second-highest paid undrafted player on the Rams in 2026, but also the second-most for any UDFA signed by the team ever, behind only Josh Wallace in 2024. Wallace made the Rams roster in each of the last two seasons, so does that mean the Rams are going to keep six tight ends?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Villari started his career at Michigan in 2021, but transferred to Syracuse in 2022. He actually had 326 RUSHING yards in 2023, but had his best season as a receiver in 2025 with 412 yards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Zierlein notes that many of the fundamentals still elude Villari.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">However, will a summer with Sean McVay and the best tight end room in the league be enough to get Villari up to speed for being a surprise name on the final 53-man roster after training camp?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Rams extended Tyler Higbee and they drafted Max Klare in the second round. We know with 100-percent certainty that they will make the roster. The Rams also drafted Terrance Ferguson in the second round in 2025, making him a 99-percent lock. Colby Parkinson was the best tight end on L.A.\u2019s roster last year, will Les Snead really trade him after the progress he made last season?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">That leaves Davis Allen, a 2027 free agent. But Allen also showed a lot of progress in 2025. Mark Redman and Rohan Jones, another UDFA, round out the room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Could Villari be the one who pushes Allen onto the trade block? Anything is possible, within reason, but clearly the Rams did not want Dan Villari to sign with any other team in the NFL. If they were willing to give him that much money in April, why wouldn\u2019t they keep fighting to keep him in September?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The deepest room got deeper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Rams already have the deepest tight end room in the NFL with five players who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2079],"tags":[7,1014,58,5088,2619,7357,2444,2611,6,424],"class_list":["post-900433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-rams","tag-football","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-los-angeles-rams-depth-chart","tag-los-angeles-rams-draft","tag-los-angeles-rams-salary-cap","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesrams","tag-nfl","tag-rams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116632608040515111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}