[News] Ravens Can Be 'Very Active' In Free Agency Without Joe Flacco Contract Restructure

[Matty G]

  12 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

No, he won't be released. That's the point. Guys like Joe don't get released, because in many cases, it takes many, many, many years in order to replace him.

That's the point. There really is no scenario where Joe gets released, short of him pulling a Ray Rice. He can play like he did in 2013, when he had his worst season, and he will still sign an extension worth $20M a year or more. Why? Because that's the market rate for said QB.

There's this false perception around fans that having less dead money and more cap savings allows us the ability to threaten to release somebody. That would generally work... if anybody on the planet thought you could replace that player. But no realistic person thinks we'd have a prayer of finding a better QB next season or probably in the short-term after that, meaning in order to be willing to cut Flacco, you have to be willing to lose for several years in the hopes of finding the next Andrew Luck. Needless to say, there's many teams who have been trying this (Cleveland, Buffalo, Miami, etc.) for quite literally a decade or longer, and have many failed attempts in doing so.

Make no mistake... the alleged "threat" of a release is a laughable notion, and Joe's agent knows this very well. Its great for fans to pretend like its a possibility, but its not.

Agree. No chance that a threat of cut or release will be used. Linta isn't stupid and the Ravens aren't neither. I do however get the feeling that even though they say they have been "friend" for years, there is a huge amount of animosity there. It seem that they just don't like each other.

Yea, but you don't give an extension to a qb that has had mediocre seasons since the super bowl. Also, he is coming off a major knee injury and while many players snap back there are a lot that don't. Also while many teams will pay premium dollars for a mediocre qb doesn't mean the Ravens have to. Defense wins Championships. While I am not say we should cut Joe, that would be absurd, but I think an extension at this time would be foolish.

[rmcjacket23]

2 minutes ago, ALI624 said:

Well that's the point of the threat we tell him we are going to cut Monroe because we need the cap money for other players and not going to draft one early to spend it on the defense(which I believe is the more pressing need.)

Still wouldn't change my mind if I were Joe or his agent. He's pretty much just had a steady rotation of below average LTs for most of his career, so nothing different now.

I'd tell them to make one of the other half dozen or more players who aren't living up to their contract take a paycut so Monroe can stay.

Plus, Linta and Joe know just as much as Ozzie does that if Joe gets injured or they can't protect him well, it doesn't really matter how great the defense is, because they aren't going to win games.

Edited February 25, 2016 by rmcjacket23

[rmcjacket23]

5 minutes ago, Matty G said:

Yea, but you don't give an extension to a qb that has had mediocre seasons since the super bowl. Also, he is coming off a major knee injury and while many players snap back there are a lot that don't. Also while many teams will pay premium dollars for a mediocre qb doesn't mean the Ravens have to. Defense wins Championships. While I am not say we should cut Joe, that would be absurd, but I think an extension at this time would be foolish.

Well, actually many teams have done just that... see Eli Manning and Big Ben. These are guys who haven't been to a SB in quite some time, and have some mediocre seasons between that time. Both got very large long-term extensions, and Joe is going to get one as well.

Its not so much that MANY teams will pay a premium for "mediocre" QBs (subjective, depending on how you define mediocre), its that ALL of them do. There's three types of teams in this league...

1. Teams with highly paid QBs, typically based on current and past success. Generally represents the better teams in the league year over year

2. Teams with no stability at QB, rotating said position annually. These teams almost entirely are never relevant in the league

3. Teams with QBs on rookie deals. Eventually, those teams will join either group 1 or group 2, depending on how the rookie do.

There really aren't any exceptions to this.

So why does an extension make sense now? Well, realistically, Joe's floor is already set and won't change, because the market sets his floor. We know what guys like Eli/Big Ben/Rivers/Romo get, and Joe is in that class. There's also the idea of guys like Cousins and Bradford signing extensions or getting franchised tagged this offseason, which again, drives up the price of Joe, since he's clearly better than those guys.

So if we know what the floor is and how its largely unchanged... you've now created risk. What risk? The same risk we took after 2011 when we didn't sign Joe to an extension then... that he may play great, achieve great things, and now he goes into negotiations next offseason with a blank check philosophy (and justifiably so).

[budman]

4 minutes ago, Matty G said:

Yea, but you don't give an extension to a qb that has had mediocre seasons since the super bowl. Also, he is coming off a major knee injury and while many players snap back there are a lot that don't. Also while many teams will pay premium dollars for a mediocre qb doesn't mean the Ravens have to. Defense wins Championships. While I am not say we should cut Joe, that would be absurd, but I think an extension at this time would be foolish.

Sure you do. Brees got one, Palmer, Kaepernick, Rivers, Dalton Etc. all got resigned or extended even with mediocre seasons. They, along with Flacco have "Franchise Qb" label (except Kaep)

[rmcjacket23]

25 minutes ago, Matty G said:

Again, if he has another year like 2016, why on earth would you give him an extension. Two, Joe is coming off a major knee injury, and while many players snap back there are a lot that don't. Three, it has been shown in the past couple super bowls that superbowls are mostly won on defense. Peyton was mediocre and so is Wilson. Look, I agree that qb's are a hot commodity and yes teams will pay premium price, but that does not mean the Ravens have to. Pay premium money for a premium player is how I see it, and since the super bowl run you could say our qb has been very suspect. Granted he helped us win a superbowl, but the old saying goes......."It's not what you have done for me, but what have you done for me lately"

Sorry, you lost all credibility once you said that Wilson is mediocre. 

All possible statistics and on-field success pretty much destroys that argument immediately.

And if you'll notice... these teams you described were able to build great defenses AT THE SAME TIME that they paid top tier money to QBs.

You do realize that the Broncos won the SB last season with a great defense AND a QB playing on a $17.5M cap number?

That's the dirty little secret that fans seem to misunderstand... you quite literally can have both. In order to do that, you need to draft well and have cheap, quality defensive players, which is what Denver had in many areas, same thing for Carolina and Seattle.

Its also pretty telling that quite literally every team that built their team around "defense" also had zero issue throwing out large sums of cash to their franchise QBs when the time came. So either they ALL have no idea what they're doing and fans know more than they do.... or.....

[Matty G]

  32 minutes ago, Matty G said:

Again, if he has another year like 2016, why on earth would you give him an extension. Two, Joe is coming off a major knee injury, and while many players snap back there are a lot that don't. Three, it has been shown in the past couple super bowls that superbowls are mostly won on defense. Peyton was mediocre and so is Wilson. Look, I agree that qb's are a hot commodity and yes teams will pay premium price, but that does not mean the Ravens have to. Pay premium money for a premium player is how I see it, and since the super bowl run you could say our qb has been very suspect. Granted he helped us win a superbowl, but the old saying goes......."It's not what you have done for me, but what have you done for me lately"

Sorry, you lost all credibility once you said that Wilson is mediocre. 

All possible statistics and on-field success pretty much destroys that argument immediately.

And if you'll notice... these teams you described were able to build great defenses AT THE SAME TIME that they paid top tier money to QBs.

You do realize that the Broncos won the SB last season with a great defense AND a QB playing on a $17.5M cap number?

That's the dirty little secret that fans seem to misunderstand... you quite literally can have both. In order to do that, you need to draft well and have cheap, quality defensive players, which is what Denver had in many areas, same thing for Carolina and Seattle.

Its also pretty telling that quite literally every team that built their team around "defense" also had zero issue throwing out large sums of cash to their franchise QBs when the time came. So either they ALL have no idea what they're doing and fans know more than they do.... or.....

I get it bro. But why would you give a huge extension to a qb that has had mediocre seasons and is coming off a major knee injury. That is the point I am trying to make

[RavensDieHard21]

12 hours ago, ellicottraven said:

If Ozzie says we can be very active when free agecy starts with Flacco's deal not being done, one can only surmise that a lot fo veterans are going to be cap casualties.

I think Ozzie will make some surprising moves before the draft again and I hope he finds a way to clear some space before.

[RavensDieHard21]

We can only hope that the carry over cap slightly helps, we cut or don't pick up some players options and the cap boosts up enough to help us, but God even if Joe extended and saved us $3 million, that could really help. Tucker will stay, hopefully Aiken too, KO will be this year's McPhee, Ozzie will simply state we cannot afford him and not try to pay him and we will find out he signs somewhere for a relatively reasonable deal, which I though McPhee's easily was, obviously not Torrey's though lol great call there. I know that Free agency early on isn't our thing, but if for any reason these players went cheap or hung around a while, I would love to add a Sean Smith, Trumaine Johnson, Incognito, Boone, or someone that could add depth to where it is lacking...wishful thinking

[Matty G]

  50 minutes ago, Matty G said:

Yea, but you don't give an extension to a qb that has had mediocre seasons since the super bowl. Also, he is coming off a major knee injury and while many players snap back there are a lot that don't. Also while many teams will pay premium dollars for a mediocre qb doesn't mean the Ravens have to. Defense wins Championships. While I am not say we should cut Joe, that would be absurd, but I think an extension at this time would be foolish.

Sure you do. Brees got one, Palmer, Kaepernick, Rivers, Dalton Etc. all got resigned or extended even with mediocre seasons. They, along with Flacco have "Franchise Qb" label (except Kaep)

Well lets go ahead and give him an extension then. I just hope he has a better season than he did last year which was abysmal at best and also hope he doesn't pull a Dennis Pitta and re injure his blown out knee.........So lets do it, lets give him more money.

[rmcjacket23]

48 minutes ago, Matty G said:

I get it bro. But why would you give a huge extension to a qb that has had mediocre seasons and is coming off a major knee injury. That is the point I am trying to make

1. That depends on how you define "mediocre seasons". I didn't think anything about his 2014 season was mediocre, particularly his playoff production

2. You risk having to pay him more, with relatively no risk of having to pay him less.

[Matty G]

  53 minutes ago, Matty G said:

I get it bro. But why would you give a huge extension to a qb that has had mediocre seasons and is coming off a major knee injury. That is the point I am trying to make

1. That depends on how you define "mediocre seasons". I didn't think anything about his 2014 season was mediocre, particularly his playoff production

2. You risk having to pay him more, with relatively no risk of having to pay him less.

Well I just hope for the best.

[jboy19]

I think we just signed Trent Richardson

[sflegend89]

The way I always understood Flacco's deal was that there would be an implied restructure this offseason. Can someone explain how were so naive as to get backed up against a wall where we have to eat such an absolutely absurd cap hit? Why was this contract so poorly structured from a salary cap perspective compared to other top flight QB's with recent contracts, some of which their deals came AFTER Flacco's. 

 

Flacco: 28M hit that accelerates to 31M next year

Aaron Rodgers: Highest Cap hit of deal, 21M

Matt Ryan: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

Russell Wilson: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

Cam Newton: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

Ryan Tannehill: Highest Cap hit of deal, 21M

Ben Roethlisberger: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

Philip Rivers: Highest Cap hit of deal, 21M

Eli Manning: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

 

 

[Matty G]

The way I always understood Flacco's deal was that there would be an implied restructure this offseason. Can someone explain how were so naive as to get backed up against a wall where we have to eat such an absolutely absurd cap hit? Why was this contract so poorly structured from a salary cap perspective compared to other top flight QB's with recent contracts, some of which their deals came AFTER Flacco's. 

 

Flacco: 28M hit that accelerates to 31M next year

Aaron Rodgers: Highest Cap hit of deal, 21M

Matt Ryan: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

Russell Wilson: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

Cam Newton: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

Ryan Tannehill: Highest Cap hit of deal, 21M

Ben Roethlisberger: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

Philip Rivers: Highest Cap hit of deal, 21M

Eli Manning: Highest Cap hit of deal, 23M

 

 

Yea, I am not sure who structures these contracts for the Ravens, but it has surely put us in a pickle. Also, I noticed Biscotti expressed concern about the way they are structuring these deals, I think he made mention of even cap hits is the way to go. Furthermore, maybe the owner is now taking more authority. I noticed Yanda and Smiths contracts were not back loaded as we are used to seeing.