Unless you have been living under a rock the past two and a
half weeks, you know that the Baltimore Ravens are XLVII Super Bowl Champions
of the World. For the Baltimore organization it didn’t take long for everyone
to get back to work and prepare for the upcoming 2013 season. Looking ahead to the next season, there are a lot of big time decisions to be made regarding
players and the team salary cap.
The biggest decision that needs to be made right away is
what the Ravens plan to do with Joe Flacco. Right now the Ravens have two
options: 1) Come to some kind of long-term (big money) deal or 2) Use the franchise tag on him (Valued at 14.5million). If the team were to put the
franchise tag on Joe, any other team would be free to negotiate with him; and
the talk around the league is that the Cleveland Browns are interested in
talking with Joe. If that situation were to play out, in return, the Ravens would
receive the Browns' first round draft pick this year and in the 2014 draft. So, it should be interesting to see how everything plays out in the next few weeks
regarding Joe.
If Joe were to leave for the Browns next season, it opens up
a lot of possibilities regarding the spots that are going to need to be filled
due to retirement and free agency. As of right now the Ravens have 13
unrestricted free agents and 6 restricted free agents. Some of our top free
agents (minus Flacco) include Ed Reed, Dannell Ellerbe, Cary Williams, and Paul Kruger. With Ray Lewis gone into retirement I think that Ellerbe will be back
to control the middle. As for Reed, he has the decision to find another team or
stick around and probably retire as a Raven like Lewis did. For Williams and
Kruger, I don’t want to say it cause they had a great year and they're great
players but they are both replaceable. All of these guys are defensive players,
so this year in the draft expect to see a defensive player as the team's first
pick.
Which brings me back to the Joe Flacco decision. If the
Ravens were to release him to the Browns, the team would have a chance to pick
up some big named super stars in the draft. My thought process regarding the
draft goes as follows: With the Browns 7th round pick, Manti Te’o
would be a nice compliment to Ellerbe. With the Ravens 32nd or 2nd round pick, Tyrann Mathieu would be a steal and have no problem filling Reeds' shoes. Ravens
have a history of taking in talented players who have had off the field issues
and turning their careers around for the better, which would be the case for
Mathieu. And next year in the 2014 draft, with the Browns first round pick, Jadeveon Clowney (So., OLB, South Carolina)
could make a great compliment to T-Sizzle as a long term fill-in for Kruger.
Granted these are just my opinions about what I would like to
see, knowing we have a lot of work to do on defense. What do you guys think
about my predictions? Do you think a scenario will play out like this one or do
you think Joe will come to terms with a big time deal?
