Baltimore Ravens to sit out the rest of free agency to maintain the 3rd round compensatory pick?

With most of the good players off the board following the first few weeks of free agency, the Ravens have been more active than usual. With the additions of Ben Watson, Eric Weddle, and Mike Wallace, the Ravens shored up several positions of need. They still have holes at inside linebacker, cornerback, and needs for the long term and depth at offensive line and outside linebacker, but they are likely to wait until the draft to address most of these needs.

The Ravens fan base is unique, having experienced two decades of Ozzie Newsome at the helm. While no general manager is perfect and Ozzie has his share of misses, Newsome has proven to be at the top of the league in terms of his ability to manage a team. One of only a handful of teams to win multiple Super Bowls since they came into the league, the Ravens did it with 2 teams whose only common link was Ray Lewis, although one was in his prime and the other his final year.

One thing this has resulted in is a potentially unhealthy focus on compensatory picks, with the Ravens being the unquestioned Kings of accumulating these picks. While they are definitely an asset, and most years the team does their best to accumulate them, this year a weak free agent class signaled a good time for the Ravens to shift their focus to improving their team as best they could, within their financial constraints. The Ravens made three solid additions, and now with the exit of Courtney Upshaw to go to Atlanta, in addition to Kelechi Osemele and the surprising signing of backup quartererback by those same Falcons, the Ravens now have their 3rd round compensatory pick back on the board for the 2017 draft.

With what is left on the market, there really is no reason for the Ravens to jeopardize that pick. Players like Walter Thurmond and Leon Hall are nice players, but I wouldn't trade a third rounder for them so the Ravens are likely to sit out on regular free agents until after May 12th (which has replaced June 1st as the date after which players signed don't count toward the compensatory formula). This doesn't preclude them from signing cut free agents, but they might choose to sit out free agency until after the draft anyways.