B-more Ravor

Well try telling him that. That's our viewpoint, that's our plan. It's better than being out of a job, out of the NFL, sure. But he will have way better options, it's not like nobody wants him. Why would he do that if there's 20 other teams offering him a #1 or #2 job and a way bigger contract? Why would he accept being demoted, take less money? He's not gonna do that, let's be realistic here.

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. 

Well, the Ravens have a little over $4 million available right now, and it's a fairly big possibility that Koch, Ngata, and Canty are gone next year. With the cap set to continue escalating, it's not out of the question.

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.

Waste of money. Trindon Holiday would have taken a lot less to fill the same role. Smh

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 question becomes whether Suggs is willing to take that deal.  Despite his poor 2nd half last year, are Suggs and his agent willing to say he's worth $6.67M a year?  I'm not sure how quick they are to jump on a deal like that.  Even though the market for pass rushers was incredibly weak last year, I think an argument can be made that he's worth more based on his 1st half of the season and that he's only 2 years removed from being DPOY.

 

Suggs is a really tricky situation.  His inconsistency has made his value so hard to nail down.  Is he worth premiere (but older) pass rusher money, or is he worth purely older pass rusher money?  His value is just all over the place.

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.

As long as we can knock his cap number down $4-5M this year, I'd be happy.

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.