The Baltimore Ravens and cornerback Rock Ya-Sin have agreed on a one-year contract.
#Ravens are signing veteran corner Rock Ya-Sin to a one-year contract, per a league source
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) May 3, 2023
RSR staff react to the news here.
Darin McCann
While Rock Ya-Sin probably won’t be confused with Jalen Ramsey or Sauce Gardner, he’s a good player who is still only 26 years old and excels in man coverage on the perimeter. He gave up a very respectable passer rating of 82.6 last year, continuing a trend of posting a better number in that category every year of his four-year career. He also only allowed one touchdown against him. He’s a physical guy who isn’t afraid to put his nose into traffic, but he did have a missed-tackle percentage of 11.8 last year, which is entirely too high, and is the fourth consecutive year that rate has worsened.
It’s a good signing in that the Ravens now have a competent-to-good second corner, and shouldn’t prevent them from making another move if one became available.
Rob Shields
The signing of Rock Ya-Sin has been in the works for a while, likely having a handshake agreement a while back but the Ravens didn’t want to lose their 4th round comp pick, so they waited.
This is also probably part of the reason they didn’t go corner earlier in the draft, as many hoped.
Sin limited QBs to an 82.5 passer rating when they targeted him and his PFF grade was in the mid 60s, which is respectable.
He should be a solid contributor that maybe can get better in Baltimore’s defense and scheme.
So, does this make the team basically done? I personally still hope they sign Marcus Peters but they do have to let the young corners play and see if they can help long-term.
Rock Ya-Sin is a prototypical boundary CB for the #Ravens. Good press man ability, long & he’s pretty physical. He has zone experience which is a plus. I like the option of rotating him with Stephens perhaps, which they did with Peters. Helps to keep him durable. #RavensFlock
— Dev Panchwagh (@devpanchwagh) May 3, 2023
Kevin McNelis
Count this acquisition among the least surprising moves of the offseason. Ya-Sin may not be the world-beater that the Colts were hoping for when they used a second round pick on him in 2019, but at the very least he’ll add another body to the CB competition in camp.
The caveat I feel has been missed by a lot of this conversation is that Ya-Sin’s supporting casts in Indy and Vegas were… less than optimal. With Marlon Humphrey, Marcus Williams and Kyle Hamilton leading the charge in the secondary, maybe Ya-Sin can finally blossom some when he’s not asked to do too much.
Nikhil Mehta
Rock Ya-Sin’s signing in Baltimore started to feel like a given leading up to the draft, and a near-certainty when the Ravens didn’t pick a cornerback until the fifth round. He’s not a CB1-level talent, but he’s a solid outside cornerback whose experience Mike Macdonald can trust opposite Marlon Humphrey early in the season. He can execute most coverage assignments and he can comfortably stick with a wide cross-section of the NFL’s receivers.
You can quibble with PFF’s grading system, but this tidbit from Brad Spielberger’s Free Agent Rankings included some advanced metrics from the last two seasons that may have attracted the Ravens to the 26-year-old:
“Ya-Sin’s’ 18.2% forced incompletion percentage line up out wide ranks 19th, and his 0.67 yards per coverage snap ranks fifth.”
That makes me feel better about his subpar ball production – just 20 PBUS and 2 interceptions in his four-year career – but his missed tackle rate is a red flag for which I’m hoping the tackling talent across the rest of the Ravens defense will help compensate.
Bottom line: Ya-Sin won’t block the way of Brandon Stephens, Jalyn Armour-Davis or even Kyu Blu Kelly if they take a leap this fall, but he’s a significant upgrade to them right now.
Brennan Stewart
Seeing his name float around in the days leading up to the draft and even after, the acquisition of Rock Ya-Sin is no surprise. Adjacent to Marlon Humphrey are all question marks: Brandon Stephens, Jalyn Armour-Davis, Damarion Williams, and newly-added Kyu Blu Kelly. While all have varying amounts of potential to become a locked-in starter at the position, Ya-Sin provides another option should the Ravens find themselves striking out in the secondary.
Ya-Sin missed six games last season, having played his last game in Week 12 against the Chargers where he recorded two solo tackles. His stats may not be the flashiest, but at just 26 years old he has a long way to go in his professional career, so he could be motivated to earn a longer contract after 2023. Either way, cornerback will likely be the most competitive position for the Ravens moving forward, so that spot on the left side should be filled with a dependable starter either way.
Adam Bonaccorsi
While it’s not the splashy free agent or early round draft pick at corner that many had hoped for, Rock is a very solid addition to play opposite of Marlon Humphrey on the Ravens starting defense. I’m actually shocked they stuck with one year and not two, honestly…
Gotta be a few more vet deals waiting in the wings to fill out the Ravens roster, but an excellent start to Free Agency 2.0!
6 Responses
Apparently when EDC makes a mistake he just keeps going. I think this is a great signing from the standpoint that it’s another nail in EDCs coffin. If this whole thing crashes and burns maybe we’ll get a GM that doesn’t make reckless decisions with draft capital or sign people with out a ring to contracts above and beyond what they’ve produced. Now let’s see if the EDC curse is real. We’ll know it’s real if Lamar gets injured. Btw, did they ever replace their strength and conditioning coach? That might be a problem too, especially when you consider the grades the players gave it. He’s hoping we have enough uninjured players to field a team. Won’t count on Bateman though, he came out of college broke…..it’s all he knows. But I’ll bet next year he’ll be wanting to have the richest WR contract in the league while only playing in maybe 6 games. Players that come to baltimore treat it like their personal ATM machine. And why not? When you consider what Joe Flacco did or the numbskull that faked injury then carried a 300lb bear down the side of a mountain. Spending like this will come back on us.
I think you should just give up as a Ravens fan at this point. Sound like you’re going to give yourself a heart attack
Dude – you need to take some Xanax.
Did he take your parking spot? 🙂
I believe that with Macdonald’s zone preference we can get away without top shelf cover-corners. We still want the best we can get, but we now have completely flipped the script to something like 75% zone.
With this signing you have to hope a change of scenery lights a fire under his butt.