The Baltimore Ravens would love to keep Matt Judon around long term, but franchise tagging and then trading him is a possibility and he has great value.
The Baltimore Ravens are a team that reloads rather than resigns their big-name free agents. We’ve seen time-and-time again guys like Paul Kruger or Arthur Jones hit the open market and get paid while fans griped about how it was a bad decision by the front office to let them go. More often than not the Ravens brass makes the right decision to do so. Now, the franchise has to decide if they’ll do the same with Matt Judon.
Last offseason, Baltimore decided to let Za’Darius Smith walk after a then-career best season. Smith broke out to the tune of 8.5 sacks and wound up signing a deal with the Green Bay Packers. It was tough to see him walk, but it’s the nature of the business. Terrell Suggs was also let go last offseason and went to the Arizona Cardinals before being waived and eventually winning a Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs.
These departures left lofty expectations on Matt Judon, and he responded with a career-high 9.5 sacks and his first Pro Bowl selection. Now, he’s an unrestricted free agent.
The Baltimore Ravens have three options here:
- They resign Judon to a long-term deal
- They let Judon walk in Free Agency
- They slap Judon with the franchise tag
The most likely of these scenarios seems to be franchise tagging him. This doesn’t mean they’ll negotiate a long-term deal with him, however. In fact, it could give the Ravens an opportunity to shop Judon around as a trade piece.
This may sound insane, but this is the most likely scenario there is. The question on everyone’s mind now is what is Matt Judon worth?