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According to The Athletic’s Michael Lombardi, the Jacksonville Jaguars are ‘extremely close’ to trading Jaguars DE Yannick Ngakoue.
According to NFL sources, Jacksonville is extremely close to trading Yannick Ngakoue today or tomorrow, have a firm offer in place--(hearing a two). looks like this holdout will be over soon and Jacksonville will get more picks for their tanking....
— Michael Lombardi (@mlombardiNFL) August 19, 2020
The Baltimore Ravens have been mentioned as a possible landing spot for well over a year now and an offer has been made by a mystery team, so I figured one more Ngakoue to the Ravens article couldn’t hurt.
Cap Space
According to overthecap.com, the Ravens only have $7.4 million in effective cap space and Ngakoue’s franchise tag is $17.8 million. This alone makes the possibility of Baltimore being the suitor unlikely.
If the gap between cap space and his tag was within a couple million I’d say it’s still possible, but the difference is $10.4 million. Also, the Ravens would be unable to extend his contract until the offseason as the franchise tag deadline passed last month.
Even with some clever financial maneuvering (literally cutting everybody to free up cap space), I don’t believe it’s possible. I attempted to make room for Ngakoue’s tag on the overthecap calculator and failed to free up more than $17 million. Even after wild cuts, including Brandon Williams, Mark Ingram, Robert Griffin III, Matt Skura, Morgan Cox and 22 others, I didn’t create enough room for Ngakoue.
Ngakoue is an excellent player who would improve this team, but his addition looks financially improbable. More importantly, the current roster is well built and slashing 27 players in hopes of adding one is a fool’s errand.