In addition to locking up kicker Justin Tucker, the Ravens made the smart move of signing safety Will Hill to a restricted tender deal as well. Hill's contract is a $1.542 million original round tender deal. Despite the lower tender, Hill did not draw any other offer sheets from around the NFL, which is slightly surprising.
The former undrafted free agent picked up his game for the Ravens last season while the secondary was battling injuries and ineffective play from their young safeties. Hill is expected to compete and likely win the starting job this offseason with the Ravens.
Hill came to the Ravens after being cut from the New York Giants due to repeated marijuana positive drug tests. He served a six-game suspension before being able to play for the Ravens, but started eight regular season games in 2014 and returned an interception for a touchdown against the New Orleans Saints while covering tight end Jimmy Graham.
Hill has been a good player throughout his NFL career, but has had trouble keeping his nose clean while not on the field. In addition to his repeated NFL substance abuse policy violations, The Baltimore Sun reported that Hill had an arrest warrant issued for him in New Jersey for failure to pay $16,588.18 in back child support. Hill has been suspended for a total of 14 games in three NFL seasons, which is probably why NFL teams have shied away from the talented safety.
However, since being a Raven, Hill has been able to keep himself out of trouble and is looking to rebound his career in Baltimore. Hill has gotten praise from both teammates and coaches for his talent and ability to stay low key in the locker room.
"Will Hill, he has a lot of talent," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said during a season-ending news conference. "It's something that we always knew. He also has a great love for the game. He learned our defense throughout the course of the season, which it’s not easy to do that. We have a tough defense. We do a lot of good stuff back there. But he was running the show pretty well back there toward the end of the year."
"Having the offseason, having the OTAs and the minicamp and the training camp is only going to really help him tremendously, as far as being a really good safety for us," Harbaugh said. "And I’ll say this: We put it on his plate a little bit. We’re challenging him for the next three or four months. ‘Are you going to come back a better player than you were when you left here in January, and is that slate going to be clean?’
"We fully expect it to be. He just had a baby. He’s doing great with his family, and we fully expect him to do a great job with that, and we’re going to try to help him any way we can with that."