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Signings, Cuts, Trades
- Thread starter RavensMania
- Start date
difference is, madubuike doesnt get to hit free agency like Jones and Wilkins
redrum52
Hall of Famer
A lot of you going to be disappointed when we draft our RB and WR. I wouldn't want to pay him anyway.
ravenslord
Ravens Ring of Honor
Yep
He wants a payday.. we cant afford what other teams can.. patriots probably give whatever he wants
If we can afford it, id take ridley in a heart beat..
Im happy we tagged him! Win win for us minus the cap situation. We get to see if he is actually worth a chris jones contract or not. Now he fuck around and look crazy disruptive this season, we in some trouble….. i forgot, deal probably gets done before season even starts
we're not going to be involved in the WR market
in fact we're unlikely to be involved much in the first wave of free agency at all
airconteka
MVP
Heres hoping we at least get a moral victory in the spirit of free agency
QtR Nevermore
Pro Bowler
I think our moral victory will be adding some useful players on vet min deals in August. Just getting under the cap isn't going to be easy.
A long term deal with Madubuike would help but even that's scary. Lamar aside, it seems like every big contract that EDC has given out has gone wrong somehow, usually injuries, and those injuries should make them wary about restructuring those players to free up space.
- I wouldn't want to load any more future money onto Ronnie, Marlon or Marcus W's deals.
- Andrews was hurt too, but he's generally been healthy, and he even came back ahead of schedule. TEs age pretty well, too, so his contract is probably a good place to find money.
- Some kind of restructure with Lamar makes sense too, but those future cap hits are already pretty big and they won't want to push them too much higher.
And that's it really. Any other money will really have to come from cuts so it's probably goodbye to Pat. (Some of those really big TEs were moving really well at the combine, so there will be replacements available.)
we havent even cut anyone yet
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
So couple things:
a) if you're unwilling to restructure Marlon or Williams, you pretty much can't franchise tag JM. You have to rescind the tag. There's just not a mathematical scenario where they can even sign a draft class or make in-season roster moves without those restructures. As long as JM remains on the tag, those restructures are inevitable, and there's no way around them.
b) I don't understand the injury concerns with Marlon. Note also it makes plenty of sense to restructure him, considering like 50% of his 2024 base salary becomes fully gtd in like two weeks. So unless they plan on cutting him in the next two weeks, which of course they're not, you're not moving much non-gtd $. It was already guaranteed to begin with.
c) Lamar is going to get another contract extension by 2026, and possibly as soon as 2025. So I'm not really concerned about the deferring of cap $ in that regards.
QtR Nevermore
Pro Bowler
I don't have injury concerns about Marlon, so much as I have age concerns - I don't think guaranteeing high amounts to a corner entering his late 20s is a good idea. It sounds like the restructure you mentioned makes a lot of of sense though, which will be very useful for this season.
I just checked OTC and it seems like very little of his 2025 salary is guaranteed at present. He'll be 29, so it's probably a good idea to keep it that way.
I hope you're right but I wouldn't bank on Lamar's next contract extension being straightforward and conventional.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Well again, with Marlon, assuming there's a standard restructure, he'd be here through 2025, which makes plenty of sense. At present, his dead $ in 2026 (if you wanted to move off of him before his contract expires) isn't that high, so even doubling it wouldn't be that significant.
With Lamar, he has a $43.6M cap hit next year, which isn't prohibitive, but that number likely rises if you do a restructure this year. Most importantly, he has a nearly $75M cap hit in '26 and '27. And while I understand the salary cap is rising, there's just no way he plays out those seasons at that price point. That would be ~25% of the cap at that point. Ain't happening. Teams may be willing to do $50M or so at that point, but not $75M.
So the only two ways to lower that number at that point is a) an extension or b) do void years, which really only pushes cap another year or two. Plus, by 2026, he'll only have two years left on his deal. Unlikely you wait until '27 to broach another extension, given that you can't guarantee he won't hit FA after that, and he can't be traded or tagged.
So he's getting extended (or outright cut if he falls off a cliff somehow) at some point in 2026. And they knew this when they did the structure of the deal. That's why his base salary in '26 and '27 are ridiculous at $51.25M. Nobody plays under a base salary that high.
Willbacker
Ravens Ring of Honor
I know Marlon has a12 mil salary and I think Marcus 8 mil. You can do a restructure of 3 mil of each salary and save 6 mil and they could still be cuttable the following year doing the math. Stanley really needs to take a paycut. Right now if cut I don't see him making 15 mil this year with another team.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
You'll likely need to restructure more than that for Williams for sure, and possibly Marlon also.
A max restructure for both, assuming no void years are added, would be closer to $7M in savings for Williams and closer to $6M for Marlon.
My guess is they'll do some void years on both, as they've already done one small one each.
I agree Stanley taking a paycut is possible, but I'm not thinking it'll be a sizeable one. I don't think he would get $15M on the open market, but I'm pretty confident he would get at least $10M. So I think you're really looking at maybe a $3-4M paycut. Likely tied to incentives he can earn back.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
One thing I find interesting is the lack of cuts to this point. Obviously, we don't need the space today, so there's no rush, but we've historically been a team that will cut veterans earlier rather than later, as a courtesy, to allow them to get a jump start on the market.
Haven't released Bowser yet, and we haven't cut Moses yet (uncertain if we will). That tells me either we're still weighing options, negotiating with guys like Stanley to take a cut that might otherwise save a job for somebody else, or we're not really planning to make space in the interim via roster cuts.
Maybe even in the case of Bowser, if they can somehow convince him to take a good paycut, he may be retained. $5.5M in cap savings with a release, but if he's willing to play for $2M instead, he may be worth keeping around.
Haven't released Bowser yet, and we haven't cut Moses yet (uncertain if we will). That tells me either we're still weighing options, negotiating with guys like Stanley to take a cut that might otherwise save a job for somebody else, or we're not really planning to make space in the interim via roster cuts.
Maybe even in the case of Bowser, if they can somehow convince him to take a good paycut, he may be retained. $5.5M in cap savings with a release, but if he's willing to play for $2M instead, he may be worth keeping around.
DeCosta has been a bit more “cutthroat” in that regard. Doesn’t typically cut on day 1 of FA but usually only a couple of days before.