Terrell Suggs Only To Play For Ravens?

DEC. 15: At least one team other than the Ravens is poised to claim Suggs, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. Rapoport confirms that Suggs is not certain to report if he is claimed by a club other than Baltimore, but again, teams may simply want to keep the future Hall-of-Famer from reuniting with the 12-2 Ravens. Rapoport speculates that the Titans, who employ Suggs’ former Baltimore defensive coordinator, Dean Pees, could be the interested team. Jason La Canfora of CBS sports says Tennessee is, in fact, interested in Suggs, along with the 49ers (Twitter link).

DEC. 14: An interesting showdown is setting up between pass-rusher Terrell Suggs and NFL teams. Suggs, released earlier this week, only wants to play for the Ravens and will “strongly consider” not reporting to other teams who claim him, sources told Adam Schefter of ESPN.com.

Suggs started his career with the team, and wants to return to Baltimore to finish it out. The only problem is that since the Ravens have the league’s best record they have the lowest priority waiver claim, so all 31 other teams will have to pass on him for him to get his wish. Suggs “has told some people that he is unlikely to report anywhere other than Baltimore,” Schefter writes. Suggs can be claimed at 4pm ET on Monday, so we’ll know his next destination in the next couple of days.

Even if a team knows that Suggs will retire rather than play for them, they might still be inclined to claim him just to block the Ravens from adding some help right before the playoffs. It would certainly make sense for a fellow contender to want to spoil Baltimore’s plans, and Suggs is only owed $350K for the rest of the season.

The longtime veteran was drafted tenth overall by the Ravens all the way back in 2003. He spent the next 16 seasons with the team and became a franchise icon, winning Super Bowl XLVII with them and making the Pro Bowl seven times. He remained reasonably productive with seven sacks last year, but the Ravens let him walk to Arizona. He inked a one-year, $7MM deal with the Cardinals, and ended up finishing with 5.5 sacks and four forced fumbles in 13 games with them.

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