ExtremeRavens Posted Monday at 09:52 PM Posted Monday at 09:52 PM The script wrote itself once the Ravens on Saturday agreed to a $60 million extension with left tackle Ronnie Stanley. They identified Stanley as the one player they could not comfortably replace with an internal candidate or draft pick, so they used what little financial flexibility they had to to keep him home before the NFL’s free agency stampede kicked off Monday. With that, general manager Eric DeCosta essentially hung a sign outside his door that said “temporarily closed for business.” DeCosta’s time-tested approach — lock up your key guys and hold on to your wallet while the market busts open — looked wiser and wiser as hundreds of millions of dollars flowed to middling free agents. At left tackle for example, former Pittsburgh Steeler Dan Moore Jr. — a durable starter who can’t touch Stanley as a pass blocker — reportedly signed with the Tennessee Titans for $82 million over four years. Suffice to say the Ravens were surely thrilled they had already finished their business at one of the league’s premium positions, signing the superior player in Stanley for less total and guaranteed money. Fans generally itch for their teams to dive into free agency with two fistfuls of cash. All those names and all those dollars choking social media on a Monday afternoon in March? Why sit out such fun? Ravens fans have lamented their front office’s staid approach in the past, but the evidence could not be clearer: Most of the executives spending big this week are playing a loser’s game. Just look at the four free agents — quarterback Kirk Cousins to the Atlanta Falcons, defensive tackle Christian Wilkins to the Las Vegas Raiders, guard Robert Hunt to the Carolina Panthers and wide receiver Calvin Ridley to the Titans — who signed deals worth more than $90 million at this time last year. Not one of their teams finished with a winning record. Targeted strikes can yield gold as the Ravens and Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated when they dipped into a relatively depressed running back market to snap up superstars Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley, respectively. But the teams sucked into bidding wars for non-premium talents — in other words, most of the players who reach free agency — doom themselves to the NFL’s version of Groundhog Day. Which is not to say there’s no pain attached to a more disciplined approach. When the Ravens prioritized Stanley, they effectively said goodbye to another offensive line stalwart, Patrick Mekari, who agreed to a three-year, $37.5 million deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars on Monday. Over six seasons with the Ravens, Mekari started at every offensive line position. He stepped into the breach as a starting guard (the position he’d played least) last year and not only played well but proved his body could hold up to a 19-game (including the postseason) workload. He was an intelligent, dependable, slyly funny figure in the locker room. Would the Ravens have liked to keep Mekari for the rest of his career? Certainly. Were they going to pay what the Jaguars did for a guard who had started one season? Nope. DeCosta foreshadowed as much when he spoke to reporters at the NFL scouting combine last month. “I mean, you guys know the Ravens. [It has to be] the right player [and] right price. We don’t have a lot of cap room. … We call it ‘couch cushion coins.’ We’re trying to find 50 grand here, 75 grand there under a couch cushion,” he said. “But we’re not a team that’s going to make a lot of splashes, generally speaking.” Ravens 2025 free agency tracker: Who’s coming, going and staying As of late Monday afternoon, the Ravens lost Mekari and cornerback Brandon Stephens, who played 92% of the team’s defensive snaps last season but struggled to build on his 2023 breakout. They added no one amid the initial frenzy, and it won’t be a shock if that remains their story for the next several days as DeCosta waits to see what veteran bargains are left over at cornerback, safety, edge rusher and guard. They’ll add a few potential contributors, in some cases as late as July or August, and rely on next month’s draft to rebuild their depth. Any flashy headlines they make will likely relate to extensions or restructures for players such as Henry, quarterback Lamar Jackson or 2022 first-round picks Kyle Hamilton and Tyler Linderbaum. For the time being, their best way to win the game of free agency is not to play. Have a news tip? Contact Childs Walker at daviwalker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6893 and x.com/ChildsWalker. View the full article Quote
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