Sources: Ravens and Joe Flacco agree to 6 year, $120.6 million deal

[unleashthebeast]

Adam Schefter ‏@AdamSchefter

Joe Flacco and Ravens agreed to a six-year contract in excess of $120 million that makes him the highest paid player in NFL history

Thoughts? We all knew that it was going to happen, but now that it is finally reported to be finalized, what do you all think?

[NJ Raven]

Ugh

[unleashthebeast]

I knew NJ would love it

[wagnall]

Ravens a Fav. of mine, but thats crazy money. How much of that is guaranteed up front. Thats like baseball money?

[unleashthebeast]

We don't know yet. More info should come out when he officially signs it on Monday.

[JesusNYY_Savior]

crazy money, but we all knew he would get it.. Dont understand the urgency though.. If he will cost 20 mil a year anyway why not franchise him and hope you can sign him to a more team friendly deal next offseason when he isnt the Superbowl MVP

[unleashthebeast]

Because if we did that then that is a 20 million dollar hit to our cap this year, giving us no chance of bringing back our guys. This way we lock him up long term and actually create some cap space to bring back Ellerbe, Reed, etc.

[JesusNYY_Savior]

Because if we did that then that is a 20 million dollar hit to our cap this year, giving us no chance of bringing back our guys. This way we lock him up long term and actually create some cap space to bring back Ellerbe, Reed, etc.

but isnt it the same 20 mil hitting our cap this year?

[Carey]

Great news, Flacco's 2013 cap number is 7 million. Per Brian Mcfarland, the salary cap guy on the site i write for the Ravens could tender all of their RFA's and ERFA's agents + Flacco's contract and still be about a million under the cap.

Now i think guys like Harewood and David Reed wont be tendered and resigned to minimum deals. Bobbie Williams, Brendan Ayenbedajo, and Jameel Mcclain could be cut. Boldin and Jacoby could be restructured and extended. Leach would have to take a pay cut to be back im sure.

Basically we are about even with the cap but have some work to do

[Carey]

Ok guys so im sitting here crunching some numbers to give you a good indicator of where we are. As i said in the previous post adding Flacco's contract to the books and assuming we tender all our RFA's and ERFA's we'd be approximately 1 million under the cap. Now let's look at things that can be done...

Let's say we dont tender LS Morgan Cox, Ramon Harewood and David Reed but we resign them to minumum deals. That would save around 2 million.

Cutting Bobbie Williams saves another 1.2 million

Cutting Brendan Ayenbadejo saves 940,000

Cutting Jameel Mcclain saves 1.8 million

Those moves would gives us approx. 6.9 million in space and there are still options to get more space...

Restructure and extend Boldin to lower his cap #
Restructure and Oher's contract to lower his cap #
Restructure and extend Jacoby's contract to lower his cap #
Release, Pay cut or restructure and extend Leach to lower his cap #


So despite Flacco getting so much in his extension will still have the ability to get the things we need to get done. The uneducated talk about the Ravens being held hostage going forward are extremely exaggerated. The focus has already shifted to Ellerbe and i think after him it has to be Mckinnie and Reed. Even if we could just get those 3 guys resigned and have a good draft i'd be more then satisfied. If we are able to do a little more in free agency even better.

[lajoie]

Ok guys so im sitting here crunching some numbers to give you a good indicator of where we are. As i said in the previous post adding Flacco's contract to the books and assuming we tender all our RFA's and ERFA's we'd be approximately 1 million under the cap. Now let's look at things that can be done...

Let's say we dont tender LS Morgan Cox, Ramon Harewood and David Reed but we resign them to minumum deals. That would save around 2 million.

Cutting Bobbie Williams saves another 1.2 million

Cutting Brendan Ayenbadejo saves 940,000

Cutting Jameel Mcclain saves 1.8 million

Those moves would gives us approx. 6.9 million in space and there are still options to get more space...

Restructure and extend Boldin to lower his cap #
Restructure and Oher's contract to lower his cap #
Restructure and extend Jacoby's contract to lower his cap #
Release, Pay cut or restructure and extend Leach to lower his cap #


So despite Flacco getting so much in his extension will still have the ability to get the things we need to get done. The uneducated talk about the Ravens being held hostage going forward are extremely exaggerated. The focus has already shifted to Ellerbe and i think after him it has to be Mckinnie and Reed. Even if we could just get those 3 guys resigned and have a good draft i'd be more then satisfied. If we are able to do a little more in free agency even better.

I don't see them cutting Mcclain. If anything they should cut Leach

[pippsux]

Joe Flacco deserves every penny of his contract and ravens fans need to enjoy having a qb who can lead a team down the field and deliver. The minute they got that micro manager cameron out of his ear, he has just played, and his playoff and sb play proves that. My advice for Joe, hit the offseason and come to camp correct, cause they will come after him this season.

[Carey]

I don't see them cutting Mcclain. If anything they should cut Leach

Mcclain didnt play well at all last year and has a spinal issue, i think him being cut is a realistic option even if it does cost a bit more in dead money. Dont discount having Bynes and Mcclain for fractions of that playing well when they needed to step in.

As far as Leach he's absolutely an option to get cut, at the end of the day i think he comes back at a lower number because not alot of teams are using the traditional FB and they arent gonna fork over alot of money to one even if they do giving the ravens the leverage in that regard.

[papirico52]

Do we have enough money for the rooks?

[Carey]

Per Peter King's twitter Flacco's cap number will be 6.8 million in 2013, 14.8 in 2014. So by the time his cap numbers get bigger Suggs big deal will be off the books and Ngata's deal will have a year left. Good job by Oz and co.