The Ravens were barreling toward a Super Bowl win at this time last year, but Wednesday isn’t a practice day for them in 2014.
It’s the day that owner Steve Bisciotti, General Manager Ozzie Newsome and coach John Harbaugh met the media for a postseason press conference. One of the topics that came up during the proceedings was the future of linebacker Terrell Suggs with the organization.
He has a $12.4 million cap number in 2014, the final year of his contract with the Ravens, and Newsome said Wednesday that the team needs to discuss what to do about the longtime fixture on their defense. A league source recently told PFT that Suggs would like to negotiate an extension with the team and Newsome said at the press conference that he’s open to extending players headed into the final year of their contracts.
Newsome also said he wasn’t afraid to let players walk, though, and Suggs was a lot less productive in the second half of the 2013 season than he was while registering nine sacks in the first eight games. If the Ravens decide the final eight games are more predictive of where things are headed, they may decide to devote their funds elsewhere.
Among the possibilities on that front are getting bigger on the interior of the offensive line, finding a playmaking free safety and using the franchise tag on one of their impending free agents. Those were all things Newsome mentioned during a press conference that the Ravens would like to have later in the year come 2015.