Peter King: Ravens Could Let Flacco Walk

Feb 3, 2013; New Orleans, LA, USA; Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco (5) celebrates with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after defeating the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 in Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

So did anyone else peruse Peter Kings MMQB this morning? it was an interesting read to say the least. Kings main topic was the Ravens approach to the Flacco contract situation. His postulation was that he thinks if the Ravens fail to get a deal in place then they will risk putting the non-exclusive franchise tag on him. That lowers his cap figure from 20.5 million down to 14.6, but it also enables Flacco to talk to other teams and potentially allow one of them to sign him to an offer sheet.

The Ravens would have an opportunity to match the offer if that were the case, but if a team like Cleveland were to heavily front-load a contract, his example was Cleveland giving him a contract that includes a 35 million base salary for 2013, the Ravens wouldn’t be able to clear enough cap space to match the offer. In that example Flacco would become a Brown(and the highest paid player in NFL history) and the Ravens would receive the number 6 pick in the 2012 draft along with the Browns first rounder for next season.

Now last year, that might have been a pretty decent scenerio. If that were the case the Ravens could have essentially traded Joe Flacco for Robert Griffen III(using the picks from cleveland to trade up). That isnt ideal(i would rather have the sturdy and reliable Flacco over the twice ACL torn and injury prone RGIII, but not a terrible deal. But this year there isn’t a franchise QB in sight and the Ravens would have a full blown disaster on their hands. Peter king suggests the Ravens use a mid round pick to trade for Alex Smith while they wait for a chance to use their picks to get a franchise QB. If that were to happen I would think the Ravens would draft Eric Fisher or Jarvis Jones, but in all honesty this is a terrible year to have a top 10 pick. that is a huge reason why Cleveland would make this move, and why Baltimore must not allow them a chance to. The Ravens spent way too long searching for a franchise QB. They swung and missed way to many times to just throw the first one they got away.

I have to think that the Ravens will get Flacco under contract fairly soon. I dont think this will get this far because at the end of the day, the Ravens know they have to pay up and Flacco knows he needs to be reasonable with the contract structure(i.e. low cap figures the first 2 years). I think this will be sorted out fairly quickly.

tell me what you think about this in the comments below.