Asomugha to Baltimore?

Over this past weekend, the Baltimore Sun’s Mike Preston sent many Baltimore Ravens fans into football La-La Land with his blog stating that the Ravens “will have an interest” in Free Agent CB Nnamdi Asomugha once a new CBA is agreed to. 

This is the second recent mention of the Ravens and Asomugha in the last month, as Adam Schefter of the ESPN also recently speculated that the Ravens should not be dismissed as a potential landing spot for the talented Raider cornerback. 

While neither Preston nor Schefter even bothered to attribute their speculation to “sources”, it hasn’t stopped many fans from pining for Asomugha – the legitimate shutdown CB the Ravens have lacked since Chris McAlister in his prime.

It’s a nice fairy tale but a fairy tale nonetheless!

Why?

Well there are several reasons why the Ravens and Asomugha are probably an unlikely fit:

1.  Depending on where the 2011 Salary Cap is set by the (hopefully) soon to be agreed upon CBA, the Ravens aren’t likely to have enough 2011 Cap space to fit in a contract like Asomugha will command. 

The Ravens currently have 43 players under contract for a total Cap commitment of $118M.  That amount does include DT Haloti Ngata’s franchise tender of close to $12.5M, but does not include the tenders given to the team’s RFAs and EFAs.  Once those are added in, the team will likely have more than $128M committed to the Cap.  That number does not include Cap space for the team’s draft picks. 

It remains to be seen where the 2011 Cap will be set, but the last Salary Cap (in 2009) was set at $123M (before the CAM adjustment).  Given that the NFL owners are asking to lessen the Salary Cap, it would seem unlikely that the 2011 Cap will be more than $130M. 

The Ravens can certainly make moves to create additional Salary Cap space (releasing Willis McGahee, for example), but it remains to be seen if they can do so and still accommodate Asomugha’s first year Cap number of approximately $6-8M (estimate), re-sign players like Marshall Yanda and address other areas of potential need (pass rusher, OT, back-up QB, FB).

2.  Do understand that from a Salary Cap perspective, anything is possible if the team wants it to happen badly enough.  The team can release players and/or restructure contracts in order to create the necessary Cap space.  Players like Willis McGahee, Domonique Foxworth and Kelly Gregg would be likely candidates to be released.  As far as restructures go, the team really doesn’t have a lot of ideal candidates and the team has shied away from doing any major restructures over the past 8 years, preferring to keep their Cap as clean as possible, so as to not mortgage the future for today. 

However, even though Ravens owner Steven Bisciotti has said he wants to guard against opening and closing windows of opportunity, they could also opt to change that strategy if they decide that they must have Asomugha.

One other way of creating Cap space would be to reach a long-term deal with Ngata.  That would allow them to reduce his present Cap number of $12.5M and create some additional space.

3.  Along those lines – given size of the deal that Ngata is going to get, and with Marshall Yanda, Joe Flacco, Ray Rice and Ben Grubbs also in line for new deals, it’s very questionable whether the Ravens can take on another sizeable deal, especially one as large as Asomugha is likely to command.  The new CBA and how the Cap will project into the future will go a long way toward determining whether the Ravens can even entertain the idea of fitting Asomugha into their future Caps. 

It must also be remembered that, like any business, teams do have budgets and there is not an endless stream of money to be used for player acquisitions.  Signing Asomugha and re-signing Ngata in the same year is quite a pricey proposition, when each could receive substantial amount of upfront money in the form of a signing bonus (perhaps, $30M+ for Ngata, $25M for Asomugha).

4.  Lastly, when Bisciotti talked about opening and closing windows of opportunity, there seemed to be an implication that the team would be less likely to sign older, veteran players to sizeable contracts (as they had done with players like Samari Rolle and Trevor Pryce).  Signing Asomugha, who will turn 30 in early July, would seem to fly in the face of such an approach.

While extremely talented and arguably the league’s best CB, it remains to be seen whether he will still be that good 3-4 years from now when his Cap number is getting larger and larger.  While there has been some great play from aging CBs recently (Charles Woodson, Champ Bailey, Ronde Barber), those are more the exception than the rule. 

When the Ravens declined to re-sign LB Adalius Thomas after the 2006 season, it was reported that one of the reasons was that the team didn’t want to make that kind of investment in an aging player.  The sharp decline in Thomas’ play over the next 3 seasons (was out of football by last season) provided a great illustration of just how quickly age can catch up with a player.  Ravens fans can also look no further than CBs Chris McAlister and Samari Rolle as recent examples of the kind of rapid decline that can occur when players reach their early 30s.

So, while there are a lot of reasons to really like the idea of Nnamdi Asomugha donning purple and lining up at CB for the Ravens in September, the factors described above simply make it unlikely to happen.