Baltimore Ravens Salary Cap Update: Piles of Dead Money

Dec 8, 2013; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice (27) reacts after being tackled against the Minnesota Vikings at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

We’ve known for a while that the Baltimore Ravens salary cap situation is not exactly ideal. The team is frantically trying to redo the contracts of overpaid veterans like Haloti Ngata and Lardarius Webb as they try to make some breathing room ahead of free agency and the draft, and the recent releases of Jacoby Jones and Chris Canty have brought a little relief.

As of right now, OverTheCap.com estimates the Ravens’ salary cap number at $139,554,517. It’s hard to guess exactly what the NFL will set the cap limit at in 2015, but most feel that it will be somewhere around $143 million. That means the Ravens are currently only around $3.5 million under the cap.

Big name players like Joe Flacco ($14.55 million), Haloti Ngata ($16 million), and Marshal Yanda ($8.45 million) obviously take up a good bit of the team’s cap space. The concern lies not only in Ngata’s number, which needs to be reworked, but also Lardarius Webb’s $12 million dollar hit. Both present an opportunity to free up some cash, since nothing can be done about Dennis Pitta’s $6.375 million dollar hit.

Perhaps the most troubling number is the Ravens’ dead money for 2015, which at $13,164,172 is the second highest in the NFL. You can thank Ray Rice for that, as the troubled running back accounts for $9.5 million of that number. Recently released Jacoby Jones ($2.625 million) and Chris Canty ($666,668) add to it as well. Cutting Haloti Ngata outright would create an additional $7.5 million in dead money but would result in a savings of $8.5 million.

Altogether, the Ravens’ cap situation isn’t completely ideal but it isn’t a lost cause either. I would expect the team to work a little magic with Lardarius Webb, who should be open to a restructure. Haloti Ngata presents a tougher situation, as he has so far been unwilling to budge. But this isn’t the first time that Ozzie Newsome has faced a salary cap dilemma, and it won’t be the first time he has taken care of business either

Next: The Ravens biggest need? Roster depth

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