Killing time until Monday, I started taking a look at the Ravens cap situation for the next couple of years. They are finally about to be out from under the weight of Flacco’s Super Bowl run. Right now the Ravens are projected to have $50M in cap space for next year.
Baltimore is #8 in the NFL this year with $28.8M in dead cap money ($16M for Joe, 4.7M for Crabtree, 2M from Justin Bethel, 1.8M from Weddle). They are looking at very little dead money next year - $1.3M they’re already on the hook for (mostly Kenny Young) and I bet they cut Tony Jefferson. His 2020 cap hit would be $11.2M if he stayed - it’s only $4.2M in dead money to cut him. At this point, I’d rather have that extra $7M than Tony. Brandon Carr will be a tougher call - they have a team option to keep him for $7M, or cut him for $1M in dead money. If they cut Jefferson, now they’re up to $57M in cap space.
Also in the secondary, Jimmy Smith and Marcus Peters will be unrestricted Free Agents. Here’s my guess at what they’ll do:
Safety: Earl Thomas, Chuck Clark, keep Brandon Carr in his dime Safety role at $7M
CB: Humphrey, Tavon Young returns from injury as Nickel CB, they reach a new big money deal to keep Peters, which will still be a much smaller cap hit than the combined $21.7M they’re paying Peters and Smith this year.
They would love to keep Smith around on an affordable “right player, right price” veteran deal but I bet someone else gives him too much starting CB money for him to stay. Hopefully Averett will continue to develop and be ready to contribute more as a fourth CB - but one of the reasons you keep Carr around another year is as an insurance policy in case he doesn’t.
Other than the 2 CBs, the other high-impact Unrestricted Free Agents are Judon and Michael Pierce. I think Judon is gone. As much as they’d like to keep him, someone else will give him the kind of bank-breaking deal like Green Bay gave Zadarius Smith this year. The Ravens have always done a great job of retaining their true cornerstone players - Ray, Ogden, Reed, Suggs, Ngata, Yanda, McAlister (arguably) - without killing the cap for the very good but not great guys (Bart Scott, Adalius Thomas, Grubbs and Osemele, etc). There are too many cornerstone guys with deals coming up in the next couple of years to overcommit on Judon now, as painful as it will be to let him leave. Pierce, I could see going either way. I expect the Ravens to make him a very fair offer and then the question becomes whether or not he’s valued enough to get hugely overpaid by someone else.
The other UFAs really aren’t that big a deal. Peanut, who I think has kind of played his way out of favor this year. And then Pernell McPhee - will be interesting to see if he rehabilitated himself enough to get a good offer. Skura, Ricard, and Gus Edwards will all be back on reasonable Restricted Free Agent deals.
Here’s why you keep from overcommitting following 2019 - what you’ve got following 2020 and 2021. After 2020, Ronnie Stanley and Marlon Humphrey are Unrestricted Free Agents. Stanley will be 26, Marlon will be 24. When I said the Ravens have kept franchise cornerstones, these are the kind of guys I’m talking about: proven Pro Bowl players at key positions just entering their mid-20s. I’d love to see both these guys signed before they get anywhere near the open market and I have every expectation the Ravens keep them both - even if it means they have to let a Judon go to make it happen. Chuck Clark will also be a UFA then - he’s a 6th round pick playing for $645K this year and $735K next year. I hope they offer him something like a reasonable 3-year, $15M kind of contract this offseason, one that rewards his great play, secures his financial future, and keeps him off the market for a couple of extra years. We’ll see.
Finally, after 2021, you’ve got Lamar, Orlando Brown, Mark Andrews as UFAs (along with Brandon Williams, Nick Boyle and Ingram). Obviously they’ll have to break the bank for Lamar (at the rate he’s going) and it sure would be nice to keep Zeus and Andrews as well. They’ll all only be 25 and by then we’ll know if they meet the threshold of cornerstone player.