Orlando Brown has issued an unusual ultimatum to the Ravens: move him full-time to left tackle or trade him. But with the team just extending one of the best left tackles in football, Ronnie Stanley, accommodating Brown on a position move is a non-starter. Baltimore, however, is listening on offers for its three-year right tackle, Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic notes (subscription required). The Ravens will certainly want a big haul for their contract-year edge protector. However, the new CBA further protecting teams against holdouts will limit Brown’s options, and the Ravens already have questions up front. Their strength at tackle somewhat offsets issues inside, but dealing Brown would further weaken a line that lost some punch after Marshal Yanda‘s retirement.
Ravens offensive tackle Orlando Brown wants out (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport). Brown recently went public with his desire to play left tackle, and he now says that he’ll only play for a team that will let him play his preferred position. 
Brown did a solid job filling in for Ronnie Stanley in 2020, reaffirming his desire to stay at LT. For most of his career, Brown has played on the opposite side, but he says that his father — former NFL player Orlando Brown — always wanted him to be stationed on the left.
“It’s never been about the money,” Brown wrote. “I’m so appreciative for this organization and all my teammates. I couldn’t thank [GM Eric] DeCosta enough, he’s an incredible football mind and one the best men I know. I want to live out the dream my dad had for me.”
The Ravens furnished Stanley with a five-year, $98.8MM extension in October, so there’s no real room for Brown to get his way in Baltimore. Plenty of teams would be happy to appease the 2018 third-round pick, however. Brown has made the Pro Bowl in each of his last two seasons and, at 6’8″ and 345 pounds, he doesn’t back down from anyone on the edge.
Even with Brown in the picture, the Ravens still need help up front. If the Ravens move the 24-year-old for draft picks, it’s safe to assume that some of that capital will go towards OL reinforcements.
The Ravens have agreed to a new deal with Eric Tomlinson, as ESPN.com’s Field Yates tweets. The tight end will return on a one-year, $1.015MM deal with $125K guaranteed.
Tomlinson saw time in six games this season, plus two playoff games. He stepped up to help the Ravens replace Nick Boyle‘s blocking post-knee injury, though he couldn’t match the offensive production — he was targeted just once and did not record a reception.
“We’ll look at personnel, we’ll look at free agency, we’ll look at the draft, and certainly we’re very much a tight end-centric offense,” GM Eric DeCosta said recently (via the team website). “So, if there is a tight end there available in the draft, if somebody else happens to fall to us in free agency, we would certainly look at that as a possibility. We know that Greg can take those tight ends and really go to the lab and find some ways to use these guys to make us more productive on offense.”
Tomlinson, 29 in April, is with the seventh team of his NFL career. Now, he has some assurance that he’ll be able to stay in the same place for 2021.
For the second straight year, Matt Judon is set to be a free agent. The Ravens kept the standout edge rusher off the market last year by franchise-tagging him, but his tag price will go up this year and do so as the salary cap plummets. That will create issues for most teams considering a tag.
Judon, 28, was adamant last year he preferred to stay in Baltimore. When asked Tuesday about his hopes of returning to the Ravens, the five-year veteran was more open to exploring a path elsewhere.
“I’d love to be back in Baltimore. I haven’t been nowhere else, so I’d love to be back in Baltimore,” Judon said during an interview with Adam Schein of CBS Sports (video link). “Just, it’s gotta line up. It’s gotta be perfect, and we’ve gotta make it work.
“If I’m in Baltimore I won’t be sad. Trust me, I love it here. But if not, I’ll still love the city and it’ll be, I think, exciting and fun to play for a new organization and figure out what other teams are like out there.”
The Ravens have both Judon and Yannick Ngakoue, whom the Jaguars tagged before sending him to the Vikings (who then dealt him to Baltimore), set to be free agents. While the Ravens have let a few higher-end pass rushers walk in recent years, they do not have much under contract at outside linebacker. Pernell McPhee and Tyus Bowser are free agents-to-be as well.
Judon has been connected to wanting a deal that pays north of $20MM annually. With his franchise tag set to come in slightly north of $20MM, that number makes sense. However, the cap is expected to decline from $198MM to around $180MM. That will make using tags far more difficult. Judon joins fellow 2020 tag recipients Ngakoue, Shaquil Barrett and Bud Dupree as edge rushers set to hit the market. That list also includes Leonard Floyd, Carl Lawson, Trey Hendrickson and Haason Reddick.
A former fifth-round pick, Judon has made back-to-back Pro Bowls. His sack and quarterback hit numbers dropped in 2020, finishing at six and 21, respectively, after he set career-high marks in 2019 (9.5, 33). Judon, however, missed two games after contracting COVID-19. Should the Ravens allow Judon to hit the market, he will have plenty of suitors.
Orlando Brown Jr. has established himself as one of the most versatile offensive tackles in the entire league, but the Ravens lineman is making it clear that he only wants to play one position. Per Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com, Brown Jr. recently took to Twitter to declare “I’m a LEFT tackle.”
Brown clarified that his father, former NFL player Orlando Brown, always wanted his son to be a left tackle in the NFL. Brown Jr. had a chance to play some of the position in 2020, but he’s traditionally played on the right side. Considering incumbent Ravens left tackle Ronnie Stanley should be fully healthy next season, Brown Jr. seemed to insinuate that he may have to move on in order to achieve his father’s dream.
“It’s never been about the money,” Brown wrote. “I’m so appreciative for this organization and all my teammates. I couldn’t thank [GM Eric] DeCosta enough, he’s a incredible football mind and one the best men I know. I want to live out the dream my dad had for me.”
The 2018 third-round pick has spent his entire career in Baltimore, starting 42 of his 48 games. He earned a Pro Bowl appearance as a right tackle in 2019, and he garnered another nod in 2020 while splitting time between left and right tackle. His versatility was required following an injury to Stanley, but the organization recently gave the fellow lineman a hefty five-year, $98.75MM contract. There’s little chance the front office moves on from Stanley following that kind of commitment, meaning Brown Jr. likely won’t have an opportunity to play left tackle in Baltimore.
If Brown Jr. heavily values the position he plays, that could be very relevant when the lineman hits free agency following the 2021 season. The Ravens could look to move on from the 24-year-old if they believe he’s a flight risk, and they also might not want to deal with a disgruntled player as they make another push toward a championship next season.
- The Ravens are adding a few staffers, including former USC offensive coordinator Tee Martin as wide receivers coach, Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com tweets. A former Heisman-winning quarterback at Tennessee, Martin has coached at the college level for the past 12 years. The former NFL quarterback has not coached at the pro level, but as wideouts coach with the Trojans and Kentucky Wildcats, Martin oversaw the development of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Michael Pittman and Randall Cobb. Baltimore will also add Jay Peterson as assistant linebackers coach, Jason Brooks as assistant D-line coach and Keith Williams as a passing-game assistant, Hensley adds. Jason Brooks is the son of ex-Ravens D-line coach Clarence Brooks.
The Ravens got a jump start on their spring cleaning by releasing a host of players in January, including defensive back Davontae Harris. This week, they re-signed Harris to a brand new deal, per the league’s transactions wire. 
It was an unusual flurry of transactions by the Ravens, who were effectively cutting veterans as a professional courtesy. After Harris, fellow DB Tramon Williams, running back Mark Ingram, quarterback RG3, and wide receiver De’Anthony Harris were released, they were eligible to join playoff teams. Or, at minimum, engage in talks for 2021 contracts elsewhere.
The Ravens plucked Harris off waivers from the Broncos towards the end of the year. He went on to suit up in four games and register ten tackles before suffering an ankle injury. After previous stints with the Bengals and Broncos, he’ll try to stick with the Ravens for next season.
Here are the latest reserve/futures deals handed out around the league:
Baltimore Ravens
- OL Greg Mancz
Las Vegas Raiders
- LB Asmar Bilal
Los Angeles Chargers
Jordan Richards is sticking with Baltimore. ESPN’s Field Yates reports (via Twitter) that the Ravens have signed the veteran to a one-year, $1.015MM deal. The contract includes $125K in guaranteed money. As Yates notes, the contract “qualifies for the veteran salary benefit,” meaning Richards will have a cap charge of only $875K.
Richards was a second-round pick by the Patriots back in 2015, and he spent most of his three years in New England as a rotational defensive back. His final game for the Patriots came in Super Bowl LII, when he collected six tackles in a loss to the Eagles. He was traded to Atlanta the following offseason, and he put up career-highs during his one year with the Falcons, including 39 tackles and three passes defended. Richards inked a one-year deal with the Raiders prior to the 2019 season, but he was cut by the team at the end of training camp. He ended up landing back on New England, but he was cut after a month with his old/new team.
Richards caught on with Baltimore for the stretch run of that 2019 campaign, appearing in nine games (including a Week 17 win over the Steelers where he returned a fumble for a touchdown). Despite getting cut at the end of the 2020 preseason, the 28-year-old still managed to appear in 16 games for the Ravens this season. All but 15 of his snaps came on special teams, and he finished the year with four tackles.
The Ravens have been busy this week retaining their veterans. We learned yesterday that the organization signed tight end Nick Boyle to an extension.
The Ravens have agreed to another extension with Nick Boyle. The veteran tight end had a season left on the 2019 deal he signed, but he is now locked up through the 2023 season.
Boyle’s new two-year extension is worth $13MM, with $10.5MM of that being fully guaranteed, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. While this represents a show of faith the blocking tight end will re-emerge as a productive player after a severe knee injury ended his season midway through, the move will create some near-future cap space for the Ravens.
On his previous three-year, $18MM extension, Boyle was set to earn a $5.5MM base salary in 2021. That number will drop to $1.5MM, with the tight end’s cap figure being reduced by $2MM as well, Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic tweets. Boyle, 27, will be attached to $5MM and $6MM salaries in 2022 and ’23, respectively.
Boyle topped out at 31 catches for 321 yards in 16 games in 2019. He has scored four touchdowns over the past two seasons — the only four of his career. This move figures to precede contract talks with Mark Andrews, who has one season left on his rookie deal. The Ravens want to extend their top receiving tight end.