B-more Ravor

idk, I think it would have been much more painful had we won the SB again in 2014.  And I guess you have to describe what you feel is painful.  We have to pay a franchise QB, that's pretty much a sunken cost for a successful franchise.  The alternative would be to take a flyer on a rookie and start the process all over. 

Oh, I don't disagree at all.  I just think this deal is going to be tougher to reach than a lot of people think. But, I agree, in the end, it will (or at least, should) get done.

I know Linta will play it hard, but I have to believe Flacco wants more rings and knows that most likely depends on him extending. I think it get's done.

I'm sure they can very easily figure out - and agree - on how to reduce his 2016 Cap number.  The tough (contentious) issues are going to be the other terms of the deal and just what Linta is going to push for as far as yearly average, guaranteed money, etc.

I think it will get done too, but I also think it's going to be painful.

So, if Flacco plays under his current cap structure of 28.55 M how does it affect us assembling a competitive team or does it really affect it? The Ravens seem to be comfortable leaving his contract be and I'm sure Joe doesn't care to change it either. So, what happens when his cap figure goes to 34M next year? If Flacco is the future QB of this team, why aren't the Ravens all over him to redo his deal? Or is there something that we don't know about Flacco's future with the team? Very confusing situation indeed.

I'm not really sure they are comfortable with leaving it as is, but that's what they've got to say at this point because that's how negotiations go.  There's now way they were going to say anything about needed to get it done because that would have played right into Linta's hands. 

Do they HAVE TO get his restructured/extended?  No.

Do they need the Cap space from a restructure/extension?  Yes, likely so.  Otherwise, they are going to have to find it from somewhere else and that could mean parting with players that they'd rather otherwise keep.

These sorts of situations (unfortunately the Ravens are dealing with it) always make me laugh.  The Ravens made the deal and if it comes down to it must respect it, but you have to think Flacco understands his salary at its present number will severely hinder this team from being able to compete and get back to a super bowl, which I assume (hope) is the ultimate goal.  I have/will never be in a situation where I'm making a decision over millions of dollars like this, but I'll be interested to see how these negotiations with Flacco play out.  Newsome says he is comfortable going into the season with Flacco at his current hit, which is respectable because he made the deal and will honor it, but realistically at this point Flacco just has to know this team can not compete at his number

I hear ya, but there's another guy involved too - Linta, Flacco's agent.  If Flacco lets him drive the negotiations, who knows?!?

The other issue is that it's not just getting his Cap number down for 2016, that's probably something they can figure out very quickly.  It's the other terms to the deal - yearly average, how much is guaranteed, the length of deal, whether Linta's going to want to set it up to for another restructure in 3 years, etc, that are more problematic and could cause problems, IMO.

28.55 million cap if he plays on the team 25.85 million cap if he doesn't.  You are the one who needs to how the caps works in NFL contracts.  If he is cut he will sign with another team for big money and the Ravens would be stuck drafting a QB with their first round pick and will save a comical 2.7 million  space in cap space   There is absolutely zero chance he is cut this year.  

 

Also if a team pays him 20 million next year it would be more than he makes with the Ravens.  

This.  Not to mention that Joe has already received all (not most) of his guaranteed money - that's what the $25.85M in dead money is.

Joe's new deal is going to average more than $20M/yr (as his current one already does) and he's likely to get more like $30M between bonus and salary (as opposed to the $18M in salary he's supposed to get under the present deal).

That chance for that big check is about the only leverage ( enticement) that the Ravens have to get a new deal done.  OK, that and needing the Cap space to get other things done.

I don't see Monroe deal as an upper market deal. It ranks 13th in AAV and 17th in guaranteed money among tackles. It's not chump change, but it's almost half of what the elite LTs are making.

So if I think KO could get top 10 Guard money on the open market, which I think you'd agree he could, that's $6M AAV. Add in the fact that he's shown line versatility, I think he can easily get $6-7M AAV in the market, meaning we'd have to pay close to that.

Monroe deal is at $7.5M AAV, so we're talking about $1M less a year in my opinion. That's pretty close.

I'm not remotely suggesting we can't sign him, because we can. I just think it's a bit more costly than people think. I think it may take a Yanda-type deal.

Yeah, may be.

Monroe's deal was pretty upper market (as opposed to "top of the market") when it was signed.  But, there have been 3 or 4 signed since then that have changed to complexion of the market a bit.

I still don't think Osemele gets to Monroe's deal, but he might get close, I guess.

Probably similar to Monroe's, maybe a little more money. 

 

Probably a $4-5M cap hit in year 1, escalating to the $7-8M range over the rest of the deal.

I don't see how KO would get more than Monroe.  Monroe got a upper market LT deal.  While KO looked good for 3 games, I don't know if that's enough to warrant a upper market LT deal.

That said, IF KO got the exact deal that Monroe got, the 1st year Cap number would be $3.2M.  If Monroe is released, the Cap savings is $2.1M, which would go a long way toward covering the $3.2M Cap # for KO.

The Cap is supposed to go up 10 million next year to 153 million next year.  We have 146 million in current contracts.  So I don't get how they come up with 7.9 million.  The Cap has not been set.  Also as we will be drafting higher are draft picks will get more money.  

Spotrac used $154M for their projection.

According to this we have $7,903,687 in cap space, that can't be right, can it?

That assumes a $154M Cap, so hopefully, but it may not reach that high. 

It also only includes the 47 players currently under contract.

It also doesn't include a lot of things that go into the Cap - 2015 carryover, incentives adjustments, ERFA and RFA tenders, etc.

This gives a more clear, accurate picture of where they presently are - before cuts and Flacco's Ext -> http://russellstreetreport.com/2016/01/04/baltimore-ravens-salary-cap/2016-salary-cap-preview-v2-0/

The team has a long list of F/A (30) and decisions to make along the way.

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/baltimore-ravens/

The list is a little off (for instance, Gordon and James are no longer on the team), but most of those named will be under the Ravens' control with either a ERFA or RFA tender.  They will likely tender all of the ERFAs because they are the cheapest of the cheap and likely only tender 1 RFA - Aiken.  Some of the other RFAs they may decide to not tender and attempt to re-sign them to lesser deals (as they've done in the past with Levine, McClellan, etc).

 

 

$19M in spending is on the high side, since I don't think Flacco's extension frees up more than about $6-8M in cap space. 

Certainly not saying that it's going to happen, but they could get it there.  However, it would mean releasing about 8-9 players, many of whom would be considered leaders on the team.

The benefit - along with create the Cap space - would be to clear the unwanted contracts off the books in 2016, so that they would have a relatively clean Cap (sans bloated contracts) heading into 2017. 

Theres a article by Brian over on RSR about our cap situation. You guys really need to read it before tossing out wild assumptions. Basically even without resigning KO and assuming they tag Tucker, give Aiken a 2nd rd tender while not tendering anyone else, resigning our erfa and given a assumed cost of our rookie pool than even with a guessed increase in the cap to 153m we will be several M OVER the cap.

Now of course thats assuming Joes contract drags into the spring and no other releases.

Interesting releases:

Arrington 1.43m

Canty 2.15m

Forsett 2.3m, some will argue this

Levine 1m

Pitta 5m if hes a post june 1

DSmith 2.6m

Lewis 933k

Now Elam would save 1.328m, what do we do here? Keep in mind we usually carry 4-5 safeties, and assuming Levine and Lewis go were down to 3.

Monroe is a 2.1M savings or 6.5m given a post june 1 release. However keep in mind after June 1 youre not gettong the cream of the crop of FAs. So with everyone above being released that saves us 15.38m, add in another 8-10 if they can get Joes contract redone prior to FA and well be looking at MAYBE 19m in wiggle room. Thats best case scenario. Someone double check my math lol

Here's the article:

http://russellstreetreport.com/2016/01/04/baltimore-ravens-salary-cap/2016-salary-cap-preview-v2-0/

But, keep in mind that for every player released there is a player added to the Rule of 51 Cap calculation, so for all of those release figures, there'd be a corresponding addition to the Cap of $525K. 

I saw when Aaron Wilson stated on his twitter page how The Ravens were disappointed that Monroe wouldn't accept a simple restructure but honestly when it comes to contracts and etc it's the player agent whom is involved the most. Some players  trust their agents so much  to the point what ever the agent suggestions are  they go along with it .

 

Honestly I don't think it's  totally fair to blame a player when it comes to contract negotiations because their agents at the end of the day are the ones responsible for that . If Monroe agent felt like a simple contract restructure wasn't a good idea and Monroe went along with that then I'm cool with it. I honestly don't know the full details of the restructure but it obviously was  denied for a reason by Monroe agent.

Not really the issue in this case though.  It has nothing to do with the agent.

What was decline was a "simple restructure", which means they offered to take most of his $5.5M base salary and pay it to him in March, instead of in 17 installments over the course of the season.  He wasn't getting any less, he was just getting it early, in one big check.

To be honest, I've never heard of a player declining to take the money "now".  Can't really conceive of why he would decline, but certainly not a team friendly act. 

The FO was PISSED, and rightfully so, IMO. 

Instead, they were forced to restructure Suggs (thereby adding future dead money to a deal with an older player), which now looks bad given his injury and the long rehab needed to come back.

This goes back to mid-Oct, but much of the issues are still the same:

http://russellstreetreport.com/2015/10/22/baltimore-ravens-salary-cap/ravens-2016-salary-cap-preview/

Also, remember that the team's rookie pool (Cap) is going to be much higher this year than in past years.  Due to the interplay with the Rule of 51, the team's rookie cap usually only had a minimal impact ($1-2M) on the team's overall Cap, but with the much higher draft position, it's going to be more like $5M this year.

Something else to remember, it's easy to say "just release all these guys and we'll have $20M+ in Cap space, but for every guy you release, they leave that many more players that are needed to be signed to get back up to a full roster.  So, right now, with just 46 players under contract, for everyone you release, it means that they are replaced by someone making at least ~$500K on the Cap.  That, obviously, then eats into the "savings" that comes from the release.

I'd like to see the per play money he got from us. What a terrible contract that was for the Ravens. He played what? 4 games and got at least 16 million?! Good business move by Pitta.

Not sure what his cap hits are for the rest of his contract, but his dead money is insane.

2016: $6.6 million

2017: $4.4 million

2018: $2.2 million

To be clear, the total dead money is $6.6M.  Those numbers listed are the dead money that would apply if released in each of those years.

 

They will either take the full cap hit of $6.6 in 2016

 

or split it between 16/17. and have 16 take a $2.2 million hit and push $4.4 into 17.

 

Personally I would rather just eat it all and take the 2016 hit.

This is the decision the team will need to make.

Not that I think this is a big deal or anything, but has anybody notice how Preston is usually the only one getting quotes from Ozzie?

I'm most certainly not a Preston fan - I generally don't like his snide ways of insulting players - but I also do have a strong belief that there are times when he carries the water for the FO (mostly Ozzie).  When Ozzie wants a message out - like "Hey, Siz, how about returning my damned calls!" - it's usually Preston who delivers them.  Whether it's about players wanting new contracts or the like, I have no doubt that Ozzie on occasion using Preston - via the media - to deliver messages. 

Much like Preston's tweet today about Eugene Monroe.

Since the issue of dead money and its impact on the 2016 Cap comes up often - and there is a lot of confusion about that:

http://russellstreetreport.com/2015/10/29/baltimore-ravens-salary-cap/the-myths-about-salary-cap-dead-money/

The misconception probably comes from the all too frequently repeated mantra that “$21M in dead money will come off of the books” after this season. While it is true that there presently isn’t $21M in dead money counting on the 2016, it was never there to start with, so there’s no $21M to come off of the 2016 Cap in the first place.

 

The reason for this is that each year’s Cap calculation is its own separate calculation. Each year sees players’ salaries increase, so you can’t simply say that the removal of the dead money will create space the following year. So, because the number of players under contract for each year and the cost of those players from year to year are not static, there really is no correlation between the dead money on one year’s Cap to that of the next year.

 

When they paid him he was actually rated a top 10 CB who had the ability to move inside in the nickel and was just as good in coverage and was a nasty blitzer.  Then he blew his knee out, twice.  I fail to see how that's the FO fault for signing him.  They legit picked a guy out of Nicholls St who turned into a top 10 CB that just happened to blow his knee out twice.

This.  Webb was paid the going rate for a CB of his caliber at the time of the signing.  Injuries have changed that since, but those are he breaks (of which, we're getting none right now).

I think Webb could be a candidate for release - either pre- or post-June 1, depending on what exactly happens with Pitta.  I could see one going pre-June 1 and one post-June 1.

And, it's not that I think Webb has been that bad, but the accumulation of injuries leads me to believe they aren't going to risk paying him $5.5M in salary next year.   The savings is less if released prior to June 1 ($3.5M), but I'd think they'd prefer to spend that Cap space on a more reliable player.

No, we took him knowing he didn't have all the tools to be an All-Pro OLB. We took him thinking he had the tools to be a quality edge setting linebacker, which is largely what he's done.

 

And generally speaking, I'd agree, we don't typically always take second round players and think they are going to be dominant forces in the league. In many cases, they become quality players who fill a quality role for us.

This.  They took Upshaw, not to be a "Suggs"-type OLB, but to be a "Jarret Johnson"-type OLB. 

I do think they felt that Upshaw would develop into more of a pass rusher than he has, but he wasn't ever expected to be a 10+ sack kind of guy.  He was - like JJ - expected to be an edge setting, run stopping OLB, who could also contribute some to the pass rush. 

I know the Ravens still have him listed on their official roster on IR, but wasn't Micajah Reynolds released with an injury settlement?  Was that ever officially put through the NFL transaction wire?

 

http://www.baltimorebeatdown.com/2015/9/5/9266573/nfl-cuts-dt-micajah-reynolds-is-being-released-with-an-injury

He's still listed by the NFLPA and I never saw an official release on the NFL's daily transaction reports, so either they changed their minds, couldn't reach a settlement or Zrebiec was just speculating.

If they couldn't reach an agreement on a settlement, he can always be released later if he can pass a physical, which the team can ask him to do at any time.

You stole my thread bro, ha.

But here are the FAs in 2016:

Marshal Yanda

Justin Tucker

Matt Schaub

Courtney Upshaw

Albert McClellan

Jason Babin

Kelechi Osemele

Morgan Cox

Jeremy Ross

Allen Reisner

Chris Givens

Rashaan Melvin

Brynden Trawick

Kamar Aiken

Ryan Jensen

Marlon Brown

Zach Thompson

The only must keeps here are Yanda and Tucker. At this point I'd like to keep Aiken as well. The rest can go.

Haven't looked through the entire thread, so I apologize if this has already been done, but there is some needed context here:

UFAs:

Justin Tucker

Matt Schaub

Courtney Upshaw

Albert McClellan

Kelechi Osemele

Morgan Cox

Jeremy Ross

Allen Reisner

Chris Givens

Asa Jackson

Sheerce Wright

RFAs:

Brynden Trawick

Kamar Aiken

Marlon Brown

ERFAs:

Zach Thompson

Ryan Jensen

Terrence Magee

Raheem Mostert

Micajah Reynolds

And it's not exactly a bad thing in this case.  We'd only be talking about missing out on $600K until June 1st, and I doubt that amount would be the difference between us getting a guy or not prior to that date.  Seems like a much better option sacrificing that money in order to spread that dead money over the 2 years.

Yes.  And, that money can become available for signing their draft picks - if they didn't have enough space prior to that - or to carry into the season (as we've seen, injury replacement funds can become critical).

I'm resigned to the fact that KO is gone.  I just can't see us soaking that much money into the OL as a whole.  Yanda and Monroe have the big contracts right now, and Zuttah's isn't exactly small either.  Wagner is up for a contract next year and I'd imagine T is the priority over G, especially with Urschel pegged as KO's replacement for now.  I think it's just tough soaking that much money into one unit when we have other areas that absolutely need to be addressed.

This absolutely.  Unless the market for KO is way under who anyone would expect, there's no way to keep him, given how their Cap is likely to shape out.  Pay 2 Guard at the top of the market isn't very wise - especially if you have what appears to be a viable option in place - and, as you mentioned, Wagner is also coming up for a deal and you'd rather pay for your RT than your Guard.

So no difference if he retires or he is cut?

Yes, no difference.

If he retires and the team would prefer post-June 1 treatment, they would ask him to hold off and wait to file his retirement papers until after June 1.  Otherwise, if they could always release him prior to his retirement and use the June 1 designation.

Either way, though, for any post-June 1 retirement/release (Pitta or anyone else), the Cap savings isn't realized until after June 1, so the player still counts fully against the Cap until June 2.  So, the $5M in Cap savings if Pitta is dealt with as a post-June 1 transaction isn't available until then.

So, if Pitta retires, or is a post June 1 cut,  we carry $2.2 mil. next year, and $4.4 in 2017? 

Depends on whether it's pre- or post-June 1.

Pre-June 1: $600K in savings and all $6.6M in dead money against 2016 Cap (but none on 2017 Cap)

or

Post-June 1 (or using post-June 1 exemption): $5M saved against 2016 Cap with only $2.2M in dead money in 2016, but $4.4M in dead money pushed onto 2017 Cap