B-more Ravor

Exactly, we're already invested heavily in Webb and appear poised to invest heavily in Jimmy Smith soon. I'm not sure where they would be able to come up with the Cap dollars to outbid others for Flowers' services - teams that are going to pay him as a #1 or 2 - without robbing Cap space needed for other spots. I'd love to have him, but I just don't see them going for Flowers. I do think they will bring in a veteran CB at some point. A guy like Drayton Florence, for instance, who would come for the vet minimum and provide some competition and protection for Asa and Chyckie.

That all may well be true, but every one of the Ravens present contracts goes up too, so it's kind of hard to say that we'll have plenty of room because of this, this and that, without recognizing that there are a ton of other factors as well.

Holiday has fumbled the ball 10 times over the last 2 years (5 each year) and was not as good in 2013 as he was in 2012. That's why he's unemployed and likely to only get the minimum.

For a non-guaranteed, minimal 1-year deal, it's likely worth it to give him a shot. Given the offseason issues so far, though, they'd likely have to be very sure that he's put his problems behind him. For most reports, it appears that he has really tried to work on his issues, so we'll see.

A reasonable 3-year extension could reduce his 2014 Cap number by $3-5M and give him reasonable Cap numbers over the next 4 years. More importantly, his bonus wouldn't be that large - likely $10-12M - that it would cause major problems in the future and would allow them to release him, if necessary, either after the 3rd year of the deal or after June 1 of the 3rd year.

The FA market for aging DE's last year (Osi, Freeney, Abraham, even Michael Bennett) was really slow last year and most of those guys had to settle for contracts that you would not have expected. The lower, more slowing increasing Cap has made it more difficult for guys age 30+ to get paid like they used to. That said, yes as I said, it might be a little more rich, with more years to keep the savings roughly the same.

They can. IMO, a reasonable extension for Suggs ($12.4M Cap number) would be to take his $7.8M base salary down to $1M and give him a $7M bonus on a 2-year extension (basically a 3-year deal). In such case, Suggs gets $8M in 2014, which is $200K more than he would be getting under the last year of his present deal. The $7M bonus creates a $2.33M bonus proration, which is added to the present proration of $4.6M and the new $1M base salary, giving him a new Cap number of $7.93M. That would be a Cap reduction of $4.47M. The new deal would likely be something like 3 years for $20M total (2015 and 2016 base salary/Cap numbers of $5M/$7.33M and $7M/$9.33M), which would also include incentives and escalators that would allow him to make more, but those would be added to future Caps. It could be longer to pump up the bonus a bit, and possibly lower the 2014 Cap number even more (thus more savings). Dumervil's base deal - before incentives and esalators - was 5 years/$26M or 5.2M/year. The base deal I proposed for Suggs - also before incentives and escalators - would be 3 years/$20M or $6.67M/year. The incentives and escalators in Suggs' deal could be structured similarly to keep the deals comparable.