Now that the NFL playoffs have ended and we have crowned our new champion, it’s time to look forward to the offseason. For the Ravens, they have a lot of work to do on both sides of the football if they want to get back to the top of the AFC.
There are many issues hanging over the heads of the Ravens, with the #1 issue being the Lamar Jackson extension. I recently wrote about how a team has never won a Super Bowl with a player making more than 13% of their cap and that it had only been done a handful or so times by teams with a player even over 10% of the cap. The Rams kind of changed that though. While technically Matthew Stafford didn’t make more than 13% of their cap (he was 11%), the QB position was well over that threshold, thanks to the fact that they were still on the hook for much of Jared Goff’s contract after trading him to Detroit.
How did the Rams become the first team do it and what can the Ravens, and the rest of the league, learn from it? Well first of all, it helps to have arguably the greatest defensive player ever. It also helps to have a WR who had, arguably, the greatest WR season ever. They also have arguably the best CB in the league as well. Neither of the latter two guys made a lot of money (relatively speaking) this season. Add in the idea of getting OBJ and Von Miller during the season at a cheap price and the Rams went all in with the “stars and scrubs” theory.
That theory is something you often see associated with baseball and it’s a method I am very much in favor of when building a baseball team. The theory is that you have either higher-dollar, elite players, or you have young players/vets making very little money. You don’t have any of the in-between contracts – no players on a three-year, $21 million contract.
You may ask, what is the real point of this approach? Well, it really boils down to the concept that, for the most part, the middling contracts are going to middling, aging players and those guys don’t tend to live up to their deals. It’s the idea that you can find 80% of their production at 20% of the cost. In baseball, this is relatively easy to do but this concept has its issues in football.
First of all, it limits your depth…at least, your experienced depth. The Rams were fortunate that their stars stayed healthy this year. If any of them get hurt for any real amount of time, they would have been done. For example, if they never got Odell Beckham, Jr. to replace Robert Woods, I doubt they win the SB. That kind of fell into their laps but overall, that does not happen, especially during the season.
Secondly, it puts tremendous pressure on a team’s drafting and development, and on the young players to perform immediately. It’s a method that can certainly backfire.
Now, with that being said, if the Ravens are going to pay Lamar $40-45M and he is going to take up 15-20% of the cap, they will have to sacrifice in other areas.
Let’s look at some players the Ravens have signed in recent years. Take a guy like Brandon Williams. I was never happy they signed Williams to any of the deals they did. It’s not that I didn’t think he was a good player, but it’s that his skill set was something they could find for far less money. Over the last three seasons, he has taken up anywhere from 5.6-7.5% of the cap – all to stop the run. I’m not trying to downplay the need to do that, but with less focus on it around the game and the team’s need for more explosive plays, having a run stopper with $11-14M dollar cap hits wasn’t the best way to spend the money.
Two other guys are Nick Boyle and Patrick Ricard. Why did they keep both of these guys? Boyle has accounted for about $16M on the cap the last three seasons and Ricard has accounted for $7 million the last two. These guys, in many ways, do the same thing. Why do you need both? Heck, why do you need either? You can’t find a fullback in the draft that can block? Or convert another strong, fat guy into a fullback? You can’t find a blocking tight end in the draft?
Again, this isn’t me saying these guys aren’t good; they are. But if you are telling me you can’t find 80% of their production for 20% of the cost, I would tell you that you are either wrong or the Ravens need to overhaul their scouting staff. Most teams aren’t putting a premium on these positions, so I am sure you could acquire them in the draft pretty easily. I get that the Ravens run a unique offense, but I am guessing this offense works with other good players who do similar things as these guys do but for a fraction of the cost.
Some other guys the Ravens have had on middling contracts in recent years are Tavon Young, Alejandro Villanueva, Sammy Watkins, Willie Snead and Mark Ingram. In 2022, they’ll have Gus Edwards. All of those guys are players where you could find replacements for at far lesser costs.
Now, of course, not all middling contracts backfire, regardless of the sport. Kevin Zeitler and Tyus Bowser look like really good deals, pending how Bowser comes back from the Achilles. Chuck Clark is a good player and a good communicator and seems to be a leader although I do think it’s fair to wonder if you can get his production cheaper. However, they are few and far between. And don’t get me wrong, some of those middling deals look great at the time of signing, and there are examples where I applauded the contract. But as you move forward, you start to see the issues with this approach.
The Jackson contract is going to be something that will alter the course of this franchise for years. We saw it with the Joe Flacco extension. As he started to make more money, it became harder to build a team around him and it heightened the need to hit in the draft. When you lack elite, top talent and your drafts aren’t home runs and you have one player taking up a lot of cap space, it becomes very hard to win.
The Rams, who had 42 players making $2.2M or less on their cap in 2021, decided to go with the idea of trading picks, getting elite talent and having those guys carry them. Now, I personally think what they did was a little extreme, especially with the trading of so many picks, but I also feel the Ravens overrate and overvalue their picks and at least the Rams did get elite guys in those deals.
I think Baltimore needs to be more willing to use those picks to get elite talent. They wouldn’t deal a first rounder for Stefon Diggs. They refused to deal their first and third (they wanted to deal a first and fourth) to move up to take Jalen Ramsey years ago. There have been several instances over the last few years where they could have made a move and gotten that elite talent and they just chose to not do it. Draft picks are valuable in more ways than just racking up names read at the podium in April. They are kind of like a prospect in MLB. That prospect is valuable to their organization but also perhaps valuable to another organization. You don’t need to keep all of them.
Personally, I believe this is a choice they are going to have to make if/when they pay Lamar. For years, they have rightfully foregone free agency and tried to build from within – that is the correct way to do things. The problem is, when the opportunity is there to go get that elite guy, they are never in position to do it because of keeping their own and far too often, they are keeping guys that they shouldn’t. We have praised them for decisions like letting C.J. Mosley (although they were still willing to give him an awful deal) and Paul Kruger go. We have praised them for getting the comp picks. However, we also praise them for these middling contracts and let’s face it: many of them have blown up in their faces and that was when they didn’t have a player taking up that huge portion of the cap.
Now, anyone making “real money’ is going to have to be a very big part of your team. They are going to need to be healthy and contribute in a major way. You can’t have guys like Boyle, Ricard, Williams and Young (even if they are healthy) taking up $25-30M of your cap. It just isn’t going to work. This offseason, people are saying they must get a right tackle. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but recently we saw an article on ESPN saying the Ravens should sign Trent Brown to play RT.
Huh? They have Patrick Mekari, who is pretty good and they have Ju’Wuan James coming back from injury. You are going to put another $7-10M into the position?
I of course understand that if you sign Lamar, his cap number goes down in 2022 but it will start going up in 2023 and you don’t need to spend several million more on a marginal at best upgrade. It’s just not a smart way to allocate what few resources they do have.
Since 2008, the Ravens have had three seasons where a player accounted for about 15% of the cap. That was Joe Flacco and the years were 2016-2018. In 2016 and 2017, they combined for a 17-15 record and didn’t make the playoffs. In 2018, they went 10-6 and won the division. Before Joe went down, the team was 4-5 and then Lamar came in and revitalized the team and they went on their run. I am not saying this to bash Joe. It wasn’t all his fault. He had some bad injuries, poor coaching, poor O-line play and poor wideouts around him – but his contract made it harder.
Outside of those three seasons, the Ravens haven’t really had to navigate around one monster contract. That is about to change and how they decide to handle it will chart the course for this franchise the next five or so years. They have signed Ronnie Stanley, Marlon Humphrey and Mark Andrews. They all have huge cap hits for the next three seasons, with two of them being years where you can’t cut any of them but if they are healthy, they should be elite talents at their positions, so I think it’s an overall positive. But they also have Boyle, Edwards, Clark, and Villanueva taking up a lot of valuable cap space that maybe could go towards a Davante Adams or some elite talent like that. I mean, would anyone not trade those four players for Adams? Give me Adams and four drafted players in those positions and I will take my chances.
In a copycat league like the NFL, it will be interesting to see if other organizations go the Rams route. If nothing else, what the Rams should show you is that elite talent is what wins out. I wouldn’t say Stafford is any more elite overall than Lamar but I would say he can guide an elite passing game better than Lamar can. We are about to see a lot of teams have high QB salary cap hits. It’s going to become a big thing in the NFL over the course of the next 5-10 years and how this is handled will be fascinating to me. I am not sure there is any one correct way to do it but one thing I am sure about is that paying middling, aging players expensive contracts is going to blow up in your face most of the time.
Whether people want to recognize it or not, the bottom line is that athletes tend to peak in the 25-29 age range, with 27 being the year most mentioned. It’s not that you can’t be good after that. It’s just that it becomes harder and when you have a lot of money tied up in guys beyond those peak years and when they were “just” solid guys in their actual peak years, its usually a recipe for decline and poor play.
For all the people out there who are saying, “you must sign Lamar, give him whatever he wants,” remember, that will come at a cost and that cost will be the inability to keep a lot of players here in Baltimore. It will make it harder to build around him to win. That is unquestionable.
However, there are potentially ways around it, and I think taking some of what the Rams did this year is a smart place to start.
