Exclusive or Non-Exclusive Franchise Tag for Flacco?

[Navy Raven]

No tag. Just pay the man. He earned it.

[GOTA]

Flacco is going to get paid in the next week stop worrying about it.

He will get signed, and will enable us to make some moves with other areas on our roster.

I was posting the exact same thing last year. I really thought they were going to get it done before the season but it never happened.

[leachisabeast]

Btw my contract prediction is

6 years 120 million. (Discounting any esclalors, bonuses etc)

2013: $7M
2014: $14M
2015: $24M
2016: $25M
2017: $26M
2018: $24M
2019: Free agent (Assuming Flacco continues to have a succsesfull career through out this contract, I would think the Ravens would by this time give Flacco a 2/3 year extension and draft his eventual replacement at this point.)

[Rochardrik]

It wouldn't have to be that much. It would just have to be whatever Flacco is looking for. If the Browns pay his number, which let's assume is $20 million a year with a Brees like $40 million guaranteed, and the Ravens instead offer him a 1 year Franchise tag with $14 million guaranteed, which would he take? $40 is a hell of a lot more than $14. If the Ravens aren't willing to pay Flacco what he wants after winning the Super Bowl, being the MVP and 8 TDs with no picks in the playoffs this year then they never will.

Flacco is going to have a tough time topping that. He'd be nuts not to take the money because his value will most likely never be higher. Not too many players would risk losing $100+ million for a 1 year $14 million deal with the promise to try and come to a deal in the future.

Your logic is off here. If the Ravens slap the non-exclusive tag and the Browns offer him $20 mill per year, and $40 mil guaranteed, they will have won the game. They know they are going to have to pay approx $20 mil per year, or more, and the $40 mil guaranteed especially if it's paid in the form of a signing bonus is a snap. They can give him the bonus, make his first and second year base salary $8-10 mil and end up with a cap # under 15 million, and the negotiations are all in the Ravens favor. Linta will have no additional leverage at that point!

[callahan09]

The Giants appeared to be in the midst of one of their seasonal "give up" modes that game. Their defense was horrid down the stretch. I get your point however.

And the Ravens didn't appear to be in "give up" mode as well? Having lost 3 in a row and their previous 2 home games? If the Ravens had let the Giants game get away from them, they may not have won the division and then we would have had to face the Bengals at their house two weeks in a row and maybe we don't come out of their alive. At the very least Ray Lewis would have ended his career with 3 straight home losses. Wow. Two teams entered that game in need of a win, and our guys got it done. That's worth nothing as a strong positive.

[saintmatthew]

How is it that we forget how putrid this offense was before Flacco.

Seriously. Now that they have a ring together, I think it's official that the Harbaugh and Flacco ushered in the golden age of Raven's football and it's not near to being over yet.

[bt12483]

Btw my contract prediction is

6 years 120 million. (Discounting any esclalors, bonuses etc)

2013: $7M
2014: $14M
2015: $24M
2016: $25M
2017: $26M
2018: $24M
2019: Free agent (Assuming Flacco continues to have a succsesfull career through out this contract, I would think the Ravens would by this time give Flacco a 2/3 year extension and draft his eventual replacement at this point.)

I really don't care about the years/amount thing...that is for the press to run with.

The real thing is guaranteed money. That is all that matters in the NFL.

Brees' contract was 5/100...but only $40M is guaranteed. $37M as a signing bonus...which means only $3M more guaranteed. The $37M gets prorated over the 5 year length. No one in the NFL hardly ever sees their full contract, so the later years are almost pointless.

IMO Flacco is probably asking for $40M signing bonus guaranteed. A slight bump over Brees. The overall length and amount is almost meaningless...5/100 like Brees, 6/120 - same thing just longer...

Personally I hope for something a little under the $20M/year average, but with the little higher guaranteed $. Maybe like a 5/$90M. Or 5/$95M. Somewhere in the $18.5-19.5M range. With the $40M guaranteed.

[Paintballguy]

And the Ravens didn't appear to be in "give up" mode as well? Having lost 3 in a row and their previous 2 home games? If the Ravens had let the Giants game get away from them, they may not have won the division and then we would have had to face the Bengals at their house two weeks in a row and maybe we don't come out of their alive. At the very least Ray Lewis would have ended his career with 3 straight home losses. Wow. Two teams entered that game in need of a win, and our guys got it done. That's worth nothing as a strong positive.

The Giants were fighting for a playoff spot too. Losing that game pretty much put them out of it or at least out of their hands.

[GOTA]

Your logic is off here. If the Ravens slap the non-exclusive tag and the Browns offer him $20 mill per year, and $40 mil guaranteed, they will have won the game. They know they are going to have to pay approx $20 mil per year, or more, and the $40 mil guaranteed especially if it's paid in the form of a signing bonus is a snap. They can give him the bonus, make his first and second year base salary $8-10 mil and end up with a cap # under 15 million, and the negotiations are all in the Ravens favor. Linta will have no additional leverage at that point!

The Ravens wouldn't have to just match the money. They have to match the terms of the contract. The Browns have a massive amount of space. They would front load the deal. That would make it a lot more costly this year for the Ravens to match. Ozzie would have to find a lot more space to offer the same deal and that means getting rid of players he's not going to want to get rid of.

[jonboy79]

I really don't care about the years/amount thing...that is for the press to run with.

The real thing is guaranteed money. That is all that matters in the NFL.

Brees' contract was 5/100...but only $40M is guaranteed. $37M as a signing bonus...which means only $3M more guaranteed. The $37M gets prorated over the 5 year length. No one in the NFL hardly ever sees their full contract, so the later years are almost pointless.

IMO Flacco is probably asking for $40M guaranteed. A slight bump over Brees. The overall length and amount is almost meaningless...5/100 like Brees, 6/120 - same thing just longer...

Personally I hope for something a little under the $20M/year average, but with the little higher guaranteed $. Maybe like a 5/$90M. Or 5/$95M. Somewhere in the $18.5-19.5M range. With the $40M guaranteed.

Brees got $60 million guaranteed...

and years DO matter, as the Ravens in particular like to split bonuses up, as was done with McGahee, Suggs, Ngata, Rice and Yanda all getting split bonuses over the first 2 years of their deal, each of which can be prorated for 5 years. For this reason, I think Flacco should get a 7 year deal, so he can have a 3 part bonus, thus spreading his signing bonus over 7 years. With his youth and durability, I see no reason why NOT to guarantee his entire 3 year payout. It's a nice way to pump up an agents ego when you are basically on the hook for those 3 years due to the initial signing bonus to begin with.

Becuase the team is bent over the barrel and needs this deal done asap, they might as well jsut go straight to 7/$140m with $60m guaranteed. jsut make sure the structure is friendly and it gets done this week or next.


At Flaco's age, durability and career trend, he is likely to play out his entire contract and thus the "press numbers" as you call them are all important.

[jonboy79]

The Ravens wouldn't have to just match the money. They have to match the terms of the contract. The Browns have a massive amount of space. They would front load the deal. That would make it a lot more costly this year for the Ravens to match. Ozzie would have to find a lot more space to offer the same deal and that means getting rid of players he's not going to want to get rid of.

agreed, as an alternative to a signing bonus the Browns could easily guarantee him a first year salary in excess of $20m which would ALL count against this year's cap, which would either preclude us from making any other moves, or force us to let him walk,. Win/Win for Cleveland. From their standpoint, there is virtually no downside to doing so.

[bt12483]

Brees got $60 million guaranteed...

That is with an *. Technically it is only $40M fully guaranteed...but the other $20M is so likely to happen they treated it as "guaranteed".

So it is a weird thing...did he set the bar at $60m or not, since the $60M isn't actually fully guaranteed, though it effectively is guaranteed. Maybe something the two sides are squabbling over.

While the waiver window gives the Saints an out, both the league and union view the $60 million as "guaranteed" because of the extreme unlikelihood the Saints would want to have paid Brees $40 million for one year or $55 million for two years.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/81...ecord-contract

I think the actual "fully guaranteed" record still belongs to Sam Bradford with $50M.

[Coastergenius]

It wouldn't have to be that much. It would just have to be whatever Flacco is looking for. If the Browns pay his number, which let's assume is $20 million a year with a Brees like $40 million guaranteed, and the Ravens instead offer him a 1 year Franchise tag with $14 million guaranteed, which would he take? $40 is a hell of a lot more than $14. If the Ravens aren't willing to pay Flacco what he wants after winning the Super Bowl, being the MVP and 8 TDs with no picks in the playoffs this year then they never will.

Flacco is going to have a tough time topping that. He'd be nuts not to take the money because his value will most likely never be higher. Not too many players would risk losing $100+ million for a 1 year $14 million deal with the promise to try and come to a deal in the future.

Rediculous argument. Forget about the $14 million. The Ravens will give him $20 million a year, that's fine. The exclusive vs. nonexclusive argument comes into play if he wants a lot more than that. I also don't know people keep focusing on us needing to "match" another team's offer. If we're going to keep Flacco, we're not going to be able to match another offer from the free market. We keep him based on the goodwill that we've built with him, our offense, and the fact that his legacy will be mud if walks away from a Super Bowl winning team.

That should be worth a few mil a year. So think about it this way. Browns at $24 mil per year, might be about equal to Ravens at $20 mil a year (assuming everything else about the contract is the same). So they'd have to offer about $25-26 mil per year to perk his interest. Would the Browns be willing to pay $25 mil per year for Flacco and give up 2 first rounders? Would we lose too much sleep over not having to put $20 million a year into one position and having four 1st rounders in the next two years?

Think about this another way. The exclusive tag is probably even more restrictive at this point. Sure, $20 million for 2013 is fine, but that number goes to $24 million in 2014, and completely out of hand after that. With that tag, we'd be saying "Please sign with us, if you don't, you'll be an unrestricted FA next year with no compensation for us besides a 3rd round comp pick."

[Dirt1]

Everyone seems to think that Flacco has all of the leverage in this negotiation. I agree that Flacco is in a good position, but say the Ravens use the exclusive franchise tag on him? That is going to be about a $20 million cap hit for 2013 for just Flacco. To total cap for the entire team will be about $122 million. If the Ravens then have to cut 7-8 good players to get under the cap, then it will all fall on Flacco in 2013 for the Ravens to win. What if he has a down year, due to a lack of supporting talent on the team? Flacco's value will go down as a result. Flacco will never have more leverage than he does right now. He needs to tell his agent to get the best deal he can from the Ravens and sign a long term contract.

[GOTA]

Rediculous argument. Forget about the $14 million. The Ravens will give him $20 million a year, that's fine. The exclusive vs. nonexclusive argument comes into play if he wants a lot more than that. I also don't know people keep focusing on us needing to "match" another team's offer. If we're going to keep Flacco, we're not going to be able to match another offer from the free market. We keep him based on the goodwill that we've built with him, our offense, and the fact that his legacy will be mud if walks away from a Super Bowl winning team.

That should be worth a few mil a year. So think about it this way. Browns at $24 mil per year, might be about equal to Ravens at $20 mil a year (assuming everything else about the contract is the same). So they'd have to offer about $25-26 mil per year to perk his interest. Would the Browns be willing to pay $25 mil per year for Flacco and give up 2 first rounders? Would we lose too much sleep over not having to put $20 million a year into one position and having four 1st rounders in the next two years?

Think about this another way. The exclusive tag is probably even more restrictive at this point. Sure, $20 million for 2013 is fine, but that number goes to $24 million in 2014, and completely out of hand after that. With that tag, we'd be saying "Please sign with us, if you don't, you'll be an unrestricted FA next year with no compensation for us besides a 3rd round comp pick."

Brees and the Saints had a lot of goodwill built up as well. You remember how ugly that got? There was a reason why the Saints used the exclusive tag on Brees. They didn't want any other team to catch him on a bad day and make him and offer he didn't want to pass up.

The Ravens either have to get a deal done or use that exclusive tag. No matter how lovey-dovey everyone is now they can't let other teams have any crack at signing Flacco.

[alienrace]

No matter how lovey-dovey everyone is now they can't let other teams have any crack at signing Flacco.

Exactly. Too many people here are assuming that Flacco just loves the Ravens so much that he'd stay here for less money. Got news for yinz all....it's a business.

[The Excellector]

None of the Ravens previous stars took a discount.

Talk about legacy, could you imagine how heralded he would be if he went to Cleveland and just made them a playoff team? Let alone a Super Bowl Contender.

It took the Ravens coaching staff and front office four years to listen to Flacco's advice that they needed to take a more aggressive approach to the passing offense. They finally got rid of Cameron and Flacco proved his point. Flacco made this offense what it is. You can say that the offensive line played a major role. However, you'd have to recognize that Cleveland has an even better offensive line under contract for the 2013 season.

What good is having these so called weapons if you don't have someone who can drive the machine? Flacco goes and what does this offense become?

Flacco can change the culture in Cleveland, just like he changed the culture here. This wasn't always an ideal place for QBs. Flacco himself had to deal with being put on the backburner, for a few years, in favor of the rush offense and defense, while other QBs such as Brady, Brees and Rodgers, had entire offensive systems that catered to making them great.

So, now Flacco's supposed to marvel at this great organization that made him or something?

[The Excellector]

What do these so called weapons become without Joe Flacco? Do really think that Anquan Boldin would be able to go off the way he did in the playoffs, with even ten of the QBs in this league? For one thing, he doesn't get separation. So, even though he has steel hands when he gets into a rhythm, the ball placement is crucial. Look at where Joe puts his passes to Boldin. He puts them in places where only Boldin can get them, but the coverage is so tight that they have to be pinpoint.

Boldin isn't having that type of success without a QB who can make those throws and there aren't ten of them in this league.

The Browns are about to enter a flooded FA pool, with money to spare. Josh Gordon going deep, they would need a WR and TE, while they still have the draft after FA.

[The Excellector]

Go ahead and put that man out there, and watch what happens. You'd never get another front office job again. We are only thinking about Cleveland.

Think about how many teams would want Flacco, first off:

Buffalo
Miami
New York
Cleveland
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Kansas City
Oakland
Arizona

Then, look at how many of them would have the money to sign Flacco

Then, look at how many would be able to add a piece or two around him.

They are lucky Buffalo doesn't have the money and you know the Jets would damn sure make a move if they weren't trying to cut dead weight. If they could move up for Sanchez, when everyone and their mother said he wasn't ready, I think they can make some moves for Flacco.

Miami seems to be willing to develop Tannehill, but you could never be too sure. It is Miami.

Jacksonville is a team that could make a move.

Tennessee might not have everything necessary to pony up.

The only thing Kansas City is really missing is a QB.

Oakland is still trying to cut dead weight

Arizona could do it if they weren't so cheap.

[B-more Ravor]

FWIW......

Evan Silva ‏@evansilva
ESPN's Adam Schefter on Joe Flacco talks: "A lot of ppl around the league believe the sides will get a deal done by the end of the Combine."