The Baltimore Ravens have been busy during the first six weeks of the 2017 NFL offseason. Ozzie Newsome and the front office have retooled the roster with several bold moves.
Tony Jefferson, Brandon Carr and Danny Woodhead have been acquired, their contracts will equal $70 million combined in the unlikely event that all three play out the entirety of their deals in Baltimore. The Ravens have also re-signed five of their own players - Brandon Williams, Anthony Levine, Ryan Mallett, Lardarius Webb and Michael Campanaro. The maximum value of these five contracts total another $70 million.
Due to their perpetual struggle managing the salary cap, Baltimore has incurred several significant personnel losses as well. Rick Wagner, Kyle Juszczyk and Lawrence Guy signed lucrative contracts elsewhere. Tim Jernigan and Jeremy Zuttah were traded away for better draft picks. Kamar Aiken and Vlad Ducasse also fled Baltimore while Elvis Dumervil, Shareece Wright and Kendrick Lewis were released for salary cap purposes. Lastly Steve Smith Sr. and Zachary Orr have retired. Eight recently departed players started at least seven games for the Ravens in 2016.
With the terms of Lardarius Webb’s contract released, the Ravens possess approximately $4.5 million in current salary cap space. If the team elects to cut Ben Watson and Kyle Arrington once they are healthy enough to pass a physical, they will create an additional $5.1 million in cap space. $9 million should be enough to sign a low-cost veteran or two, maybe Nick Mangold and Anquan Boldin, sign the rookie draft class and maintain a reasonable reserve for in-season contingencies.
However, adding a couple key veterans is not guaranteed, 25 teams have more salary cap flexibility than the Ravens presently. In the same vein, the Ravens have many promising youngsters who could develop into capable players this offseason, and seven valuable picks in the upcoming draft. But in fairness, the other 31 franchises have these same opportunities to upgrade their teams between now and Week 1.
Last offseason the Ravens navigated the free agent market masterfully to add a few key performers and their draft class made one of the biggest impacts of any in the NFL. Unfortunately, this was still not enough to propel the team into the postseason. Could the Ravens ace the offseason and still come up short of the playoffs once again in 2017?
Obviously the Ravens are not a finished product at this point of the offseason. But for the sake of consistency, please cast you vote in the poll below based only on what has transpired so far in the first six weeks of the offseason.
Poll
On paper, how does the Ravens roster look so far this offseason?
This poll is closed
-
61%
Better
-
17%
Worse
-
20%
Same