What Could Ravens Get In Trade For Monroe?
Eugene Monroe is on the trading block.
Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh told reporters Tuesday that the team is holding the veteran left tackle out of practice as they take calls from teams interested in acquiring him.
So what could Baltimore expect to get in return for trading Monroe?
Predicting the market for Monroe is somewhat tricky. He's a veteran left tackle who has been a quality starter when healthy, but his durability has been a major question the last two years. He also carries a significant price tag. Monroe reportedly has a $6.5 million base salary in 2016, and that jumps to $6.75 million for each of the next two years.
With a big salary cap hit, teams likely won't be interested in giving up high or even mid-round draft picks. Russell Street Report's salary cap expert Brian McFarland thinks getting a fifth or sixth rounder is most likely.
The Baltimore Sun's Jeff Zrebiec thinks the Ravens may have to settle for less.
"My guess would be sixth or seventh-round pick, but I'm not even sure they'd get that," Zrebiec wrote.
As a point of comparison, look at the deal this offseason between the Jets and the Broncos to ship veteran left tackle Ryan Clady to New York. Clady is a four-time Pro Bowler, but he was also coming off a torn ACL that cost him all of last season.
The Broncos traded Clady and a seventh-round pick to the Jets and got a fifth-round pick in return. The Ravens could target a similar deal for Monroe.
As the Ravens look to move Monroe, a piece of the puzzle is that teams may want to also negotiate with him during trade talks to lower his future cap hits. If Monroe doesn't want to re-negotiate his contract, then teams may just wait to see if he gets released and try to sign him at a cheaper cost.
"Because of this, Monroe controls [the] process to an extent and makes it harder to trade," McFarland wrote.
If the Ravens can't find a suitable trade partner, pundits expect them to end up cutting Monroe. Harbaugh did not provide any kind of timeline for when the team will make a move, but NFL Network's Ian Rapoport expects a decision soon.
Veteran Lineman Gets Minicamp Tryout
The Ravens had a handful of tryout players on the field during practice Tuesday, and one of them was veteran offensive lineman Todd Herremans, according to The Sun.
The 33-year-old pro has plenty of football under his belt, as he's started 126 games over the course of his career. He played for the Eagles from 2005-2014, then spent last season with the Colts.
Herremans started just two games for the Colts last year (it was the first time in his career he wasn't a starter) and he was cut in December. He has started games at right tackle and right guard, but has primarily been a guard the last three years.
The Ravens may be in the market to add more depth to the offensive line, and Herremans is a known commodity because he worked with Ravens Offensive Line Coach Juan Castillo for six years in Philadelphia.
Urschel's Favorite Football Math Puzzles
It's well known that offensive lineman John Urschel is the team's resident genius. He spent his offseason at MIT working on his doctorate in mathematics, and he already has a pair of degrees from Penn State.
Urschel also occasionally writes for the Player's Tribune, and his latest column is a fun look at his three favorite math puzzles.
Here's one of them (which is also the easiest of the three he provided):
"Suppose there is a taut 120-yard rope tied to the base of each goalpost," Urschel wrote. "How much slack would need to be added so that a man who stands six feet tall could walk underneath it? How much so that a three-story (30-foot) house could fit underneath it?"
So who knows the answer?
I'll let the math people chew on that for a bit. For everyone else (like me), moving on…
What Fletcher Cox Contract Means For Williams
Fletcher Cox just set the market on new contracts for premier interior defensive linemen.
The Eagles defensive tackle signed a six-year deal this week, reportedly worth $103 million, including $63 million guaranteed. That's quite the price tag, and Ravens nose tackle Brandon Williams surely took notice as he's heading into the final year of his rookie contract.
"While Williams likely won't get close to the $63 million in guaranteed money given to Cox, he will benefit from the rising cost to keep a premium interior defensive linemen if he reaches free agency in 2017," ESPN’s Jamison Hensley wrote.
The Ravens could try to extend Williams before the 2016 season in an effort to keep his price tag down, but he might prefer to play out his deal and test the market.
Using Cox's deal as a benchmark isn't an exact comparison because the Eagles defender is a two-time All-Pro selection while Williams is still seeking his first trip to the Pro Bowl. But Williams is quickly emerging as one of the league's most dominant nose tackles, and Hensley predicted that he will ultimately get a deal in the range of $15 million annually.
"Williams will soon be rewarded for being a leader on a young defensive line, one of the more active Ravens players in the community and a rugged interior lineman who doesn't mind doing the dirty work," Hensley wrote.
Quick Hits
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