The Baltimore Ravens made a few roster moves today, including releasing a couple of players, placing one on the reserve/retired list and utilizing their Franchise Tag. As mentioned in an earlier post, the tea, placed the Franchise Tag on running back Ray Rice, which in essence, buys the team time to work out a long term deal while retaining him for at least the 2012 season at a salary equal to the average of the top five players at his position. This will pay Rice $7.7 million if the two sides do not reach an agreement on a new deal.
In the meantime, the team officially released WR Lee Evans and CB Chris Carr, and while there was no mention of CB Domonique Foxworth being released, expect that to come in the near future.
Finally, due to his previous announcement the Ravens also placed RB Ricky Williams on the reserve/retired list, which still allows the team to retain his rights if he does not file the official paperwork with the league office and chooses to return.
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(See the Ravens official press release on the roster moves after the 'Jump')
For Immediate Release
ROSTER MOVES
Executive vice president and general manager Ozzie Newsome today announced a number of roster moves for the Ravens.
Newsome said the team designated RB Ray Rice as the franchise player, terminated the contracts of CB Chris Carr and WR Lee Evans and placed RB Ricky Williams, who announced his retirement last month, on the reserve/retired list.
"As we have in the past, placing the franchise designation on a player allows us to keep negotiating on a long-term contract. Our goal is to keep Ray Rice a Raven. We’ve done this with other outstanding players through our history, including Haloti Ngata a year ago," Newsome said.
"Each year," Newsome continued, "we have to make tough, difficult decisions to manage our roster. Chris Carr and Lee Evans were valuable Ravens, and both helped us get to the AFC Championship game and the brink of the Super Bowl last season with the way they played and the maturity they added to the locker room. Chris was instrumental in helping us earn the playoffs the last three seasons.
"As we talked about when we informed Chris and Lee of these moves, this does not close the door on them coming back to the Ravens."