Ravens Playing with Fire Again?

[TD_washingtonredskins]

In Peter King's MMQB, he talks about the possibility of the Ravens not being 100% dedicated to making sure Flacco is signed and their starter next year.

Bisciotti: "We've proven it two years in a row that we can kind of shock the world and disappoint our fans at the same time, by letting some of these guys go, but letting young guys fill in and then going out and getting good values on the free-agent market.''

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl...#ixzz2Kc6fQv2q

It got me to thinking about how they operated after the 2000 season. They immediately dumped Dilfer for Grbac and didn't have the best year. Now, I'm not pretending that Dilfer is nearly as good as Flacco or deserved to be the starter in 2001, but it's oddly similar.

[Mr. Sinister]

Flacco can be a streaky kind of QB, but he balled out for them in the postseason, and I don't think there is anyone out there right now that they can bring in who can duplicate his success. They should've locked him up on the flight back.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Flacco can be a streaky kind of QB, but he balled out for them in the postseason, and I don't think there is anyone out there right now that they can bring in who can duplicate his success. They should've locked him up on the flight back.

I agree. And I'm pretty sure he will be their QB next year. Just, if he isn't, it would be so bizarre that they have won 2 Super Bowls and didn't even have the winning QB on the roster for their next game in both cases.

Again, I'd be shocked if it happened. I just like looking at similarities and coincidences like that.

[Audible_Red40]

It is oddly similar but this is more business then with Dilfer. And I totally get what you're saying, but Flacco is to get 15-20 million a year estimated. Dilfer played 9 games with the Ravens and of course was replaceable with that defense.

Ravens have a good front office and usually make smart moves. This will certainly be interesting in the next month.

[Hooper]

They have real cap issues. It's going to be interesting to see what they do. Peter King broke it down nicely in MMQB.

[darrelgreenie]

'Sports' reporting is becoming a myth that's now been replaced with a say anything mentality.
Joe Flacco is gonna get paid by the Ravens and everyone knows it.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

'Sports' reporting is becoming a myth that's now been replaced with a say anything mentality.
Joe Flacco is gonna get paid by the Ravens and everyone knows it.

Yeah, I agree. But just the fact that people are discussing it reminded me of the Dilfer/Grbac thing a decade ago. It would just be completely unbelievable that a franchise would win two Super Bowls and play their very next game in each of the following seasons with different QBs.

[Hooper]

'Sports' reporting is becoming a myth that's now been replaced with a say anything mentality.
Joe Flacco is gonna get paid by the Ravens and everyone knows it.

I agree with you for the most part. Don't even get me started on the Mike Wise's of the world. But King does a nice job of pointing out just how much of a bind the Ravens are in. Flacco is going to get paid by the Ravens -- I agree with you 100 percent -- but man, it is going to cost them more than just money.

[skinsarethebest]

But wouldn't the best line of reasoning from the Ravens FO perspective be something like this:

franchise him for this year .... see how he does ... and then in the likely event he's NOT SB MVP at the end of next year, his overall asking price won't be as sky high as it is at this moment in time

and of course if he does win 2 SBs, then you pay the man!

Win/win either way, no?

[Hitman21ST]

But wouldn't the best line of reasoning from the Ravens FO perspective be something like this:

franchise him for this year .... see how he does ... and then in the likely event he's NOT SB MVP at the end of next year, his overall asking price won't be as sky high as it is at this moment in time

and of course if he does win 2 SBs, then you pay the man!

Win/win either way, no?

Let's say they do franchise him, and you're the owner of a team in dire need of a QB, but with lots of cap room. Wouldn't you give up that first round pick to sign him over to your team?

[Hooper]

Let's say they do franchise him, and you're the owner of a team in dire need of a QB, but with lots of cap room. Wouldn't you give up that first round pick to sign him over to your team?

Like King wrote, a team like Cleveland could make it impossible for the Ravens to match a contract because the Ravens are so tight against the cap. And they'd be happy to fork over a pick or two to get Flacco -- who is still younger than the guy they drafted last year. Ha.

Any kind of franchise tag -- exclusive or otherwise -- would be a huge one year cap hit that would prohibit the Ravens from signing other any of the other key players they want to sign/keep.

They need to sign Flacco to a longterm deal, one with relatively low cap numbers for the next few years. His agent knows this and will make them pay on the backend huge.

[HeluCopter29]

RG3 for Flacco straight up.

[ouvan59]

'Sports' reporting is becoming a myth that's now been replaced with a say anything mentality.
Joe Flacco is gonna get paid by the Ravens and everyone knows it.

I love the "Rumors" section of ESPN. Half the stuff on there are rumors they start.

[Mr. Sinister]

RG3 for Flacco straight up.

Burn the heretic!

[Destino]

Let's say they do franchise him, and you're the owner of a team in dire need of a QB, but with lots of cap room. Wouldn't you give up that first round pick to sign him over to your team?

Also I thought teams couldn't franchise two years in a row, meaning they'd have no way to stop Flacco from simply leaving after next year.