Stay or Go: Michael Pierce

Welcome to “stay or go?” Baltimore Beatdown’s prediction series that take a look at upcoming Ravens free agents and provides a verdict on whether they’ll remain in the picture with the team, and dishes out some predictions on how things will shake out one way or the other.

In this exercise, we’ll be sticking with the unrestricted free agents, and in one case, a club option controlled player. We’re trying to stick with players who have a market value on Spotrac’s 2020 NFL Free Agents tracker, with a few exceptions being made – anyone left off of that is someone we’re assuming could be brought back relatively easily.

We hope you guys enjoy and sound off in the comments about what you think is going to happen in free agency!

Michael Pierce

Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images

ENTERING: 5TH SEASON

AGE: WILL BE 27 ENTERING WEEK 1

CONTRACT STATUS: UFA

Another difficult decision looms in the form of Michael Pierce, a player who probably would’ve been considered a slam dunk re-signing even just a year ago. Now, after an embarrassing opening to last season when he showed up to camp overweight and a bit of a down regular season, a fork is certainly sitting in the middle of the road when it comes to Pierce’s future in Baltimore.

A 14-game regular season that saw him amass a half a sack and 35 total tackles, not all was lost by Pierce in 2019. He actually had a decent year in terms on run defense, grading out at a 70.6 in that category by PFF (even doing so when taking nearly double pass-rushing snaps).

It feels like Pierce is going to have some options on the market as a good run-plugging defensive tackle is still appreciated by some teams across the league. Spotrac agrees that he’ll have a bit of a market, speculating that his valuation currently sits at around $4.7M average annual salary (they go on to speculate he’ll land a two-year contract on those terms).

At that money (especially with his slight decline in play), it’s hard to believe Baltimore will be willing to pony up. Unless DeCosta can negotiate down from that number to something a bit more reasonable for a player who’s a bit more multiple, the writing seems to be on the wall that the two groups could be heading for an eventual split.

THE VERDICT: GO

PREDICTION: DECOSTA OPTS TO LET PIERCE WALK, LOOKING FOR EITHER DAYLON MACK TO STEP UP, OR TO FIND A CHEAPER OPTION TO PROVIDE SIMILAR PRODUCTION

Sound off with your thoughts down below!