The Ravens are a bit top-heavy with their cap, but as
Brady FTW! already mentioned, that is not unusual for veteran teams, and it is especially true for a club with a starting quarterback that is not on his rookie contract.
At the moment here are the biggest cap numbers for Baltimore for the 2014 season. They have $4.4 million in dead cap money, which relatively speaking isn't that bad.
- $16,000,000 -- Haloti Ngata
- $14,800,000 -- Joe Flacco
- $12,400,000 -- Terrell Suggs
- $10,500,000 -- Lardarius Webb
- $8,750,000 --- Ray Rice
- $8,450,000 --- Marshall Yanda
- $4,400,000 --- Jameel McClain
- $3,375,000 --- Elvis Dumervil
- $3,166,666 --- Chris Canty
- $2,800,000 --- Sam Koch
- $2,374,177 --- Jimmy Smith
- $2,330,000 --- Vonta Leach
- $1,537,955 --- Matt Elam
- $1,444,554 --- Courtney Upshaw
- $1,078,392 --- Torrey Smith
Here are Baltimore's 2014 unrestricted free agents:
- Eugene Monroe - starting LT
- Jacoby Jones - starting WR
- Michael Oher - starting RT
- Arthur Jones - starting DT
- Dennis Pitta - starting TE
- Corey Graham - nickel CB
- Jeromy Miles - backup S
- Ed ****son - starting TE
- Daryl Smith - backup LB
- Dallas Clark - backup TE
- Brandon Stokley - #5 WR
- James Ihedigbo - starting safety
- Terrence Cody - backup NT
- Bernard Scott - backup RB
- Tandon Doss - PR, #4 WR
Right now Baltimore has 37 players signed for 2014 and beyond: 17 on offense (at $42.9 million), 17 on defense (at $60.3 mil) and three specialists (at $4.2 mil) for a total of - depending on who you want to believe - $107,450,107 (per
OverTheCap) or $111,872,323 per the
Baltimore Sun) of cap space used heading into the 2014 year. Baltimore's cap figure for 2014 is about $126.3 mil.
Miguel would be the best person to ask for opinions on this matter, but Baltimore could extend Suggs and also convert some of Webb's salary to a signing bonus to lower their cap numbers. Punter Sam Koch is probably history, as that would save $1.6 million in cap space. The Ravens can't release Ray Rice because doing so would not only
not save them any cap space, it would add $5.5 mil to their 2014 cap. ILB Jameel McClain is another possible cap casualty - probably much more than Suggs is. If McClain is cut then the Ravens save $3.2 million in both cap space as well as actual cash savings.