Ravens' inactivity at trade deadline speaks volumes about their roster and priorities (2024)

The Baltimore Ravens are good. If there was any doubt about that, it should have been erased with them winning four of their past five games during a stretch where they played two AFC North teams on the road, one game in London, another on the West Coast and only one contest at home against an NFC division leader.

Do they have flaws or potential concerns? Sure, but who doesn’t? Every team in the league has two losses or more except the Philadelphia Eagles, and they have a loss to the Zach Wilson-led New York Jets on their resume along with four wins by seven points or less.

The most pertinent questions surrounding the Ravens heading into Tuesday’s trade deadline were: How good do general manager Eric DeCosta and the organization’s decision-makers think they are, and how far were they willing to go to make the team better?

When the 4 p.m. ET trade deadline came and went without Baltimore making a move, the answers seemed clear. DeCosta already thinks the Ravens are good enough to make a Super Bowl run, and there was no deal available enticing enough for the team to trade valuable draft capital and potentially complicate its already tight salary-cap situation going forward.

In many ways, the Ravens’ relative silence on deadline day — DeCosta was surely in the mix on a few things behind the scenes — was telling. They’re in first place in the AFC North and are relatively healthy for this time of year. As coach John Harbaugh made clear on Monday, they like their guys.

Now, there’s certainly a conversation to be had about whether the Ravens should have acted more desperately and decisively and worried more about the future … in the future. Weighing short- and long-term organizational concerns is always a delicate balance and fair game for scrutiny. The Ravens traditionally take a longer view.

But without knowing the specifics of what indeed was available on a tepid trade market and what the cost was, DeCosta and the Ravens deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s not like they have hesitated to make a notable move before. Ahead of three of the past four deadlines, the Ravens have added cornerback Marcus Peters, edge rusher Yannick Ngakoue and middle linebacker Roquan Smith at the cost of multiple picks or a player and a pick. DeCosta’s biggest lament after the 2021 season, the one year he didn’t make a deadline deal, was that he didn’t have the cap flexibility to improve his roster with a trade. He’s not bashful.

It’s also not like there was a flurry of trades completed Tuesday where you could have rightfully said, “Where were the Ravens on that one?” Edge rusher Montez Sweat, who was traded by the Washington Commanders to the Chicago Bears for a second-round pick, is a very good player and would help any team, but Baltimore would have had to trade its first-round pick to beat Chicago’s offer, and that would have made little sense for a two-month rental.

A case could certainly have been made for the Ravens to make a similar offer as the San Francisco 49ers of a third-round pick to Washington for edge rusher Chase Young. However, do we know whether Washington would have let him go down the road to Baltimore unless it had, far and away, the best offer on the table?

As for the potential star running backs who were rumored to be targets, a group that included Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs, there was a prevailing belief that their respective teams were going to have to get a “wow” offer to move on from any of them. Lining up a dynamic, game-breaking back behind quarterback Lamar Jackson had to be intriguing for Ravens officials. And, by all accounts, they had significant interest in Henry.

But offering a first- or second-round pick for a rental running back, when you already rank third in the league in rushing yards per game and you’re tied for second in rushing touchdowns, is certainly not an obvious decision. Barkley was said to be off limits anyway, and there was little evidence that the Tennessee Titans and Las Vegas Raiders were keen on trading Henry and Jacobs, either. And they would have had to be especially motivated to trade one of them to the Ravens, because it would have meant eating salary given Baltimore’s cap situation.

So the Ravens did nothing, and in doing so, DeCosta opened himself up to some criticism if this season ends with the team falling well short of expectations. That comes with the territory. He knows that by now.

Perhaps, we should have all seen this coming. About nine weeks ago, with the Ravens’ regular-season opener quickly approaching, DeCosta met with a group of reporters and acknowledged that the “landscape” of the team has changed a bit.

“We struck a contract with Lamar, so the way that we operate will be a little bit different in the future,” DeCosta said. “We’ll continue to try and do early signings as much as possible. The draft will continue to be very, very important as well.”

DeCosta chooses his words in his news conferences carefully and says nothing by accident. His intent may not have been to send a message, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines.

With Jackson on the books at $52 million per year, the Ravens were going to have to be really judicious with how they used their cap space — and they were going to need to depend on their premium draft picks to come in and plug holes from the departure of free agents who have priced themselves out of their tight cap situation.

The Ravens already pushed a lot of money on future caps this past offseason to protect themselves from another team signing Jackson to an offer sheet. They are already in a very tight cap situation heading into the coming offseason, when key players such as guard Kevin Zeitler, defensive lineman Justin Madubuike, inside linebacker Patrick Queen and safety Geno Stone are due to hit the open market.

The Ravens entered Tuesday with just under $3 million of salary-cap space, so any notable deal was either going to require them to restructure contracts on their current roster, pushing more money onto future caps or the trading team eating some of the tab. That complicated the mission, obviously. It also was likely going to require the Ravens to trade from their trove of eight expected draft picks in 2024.

With no outside additions, Baltimore is banking heavily on getting players back. The need for another running back to join Gus Edwards and Justice Hill is obvious, but DeCosta and Harbaugh are optimistic that undrafted rookie Keaton Mitchell, who should be ready to play Sunday after missing the previous game with a hamstring strain, and practice squad veteran Melvin Gordon will contribute.

At outside linebacker, they are still holding out hope that Tyus Bowser and David Ojabo will return and strengthen an edge-rushing group that’s gotten solid play out of Odafe Oweh, Jadeveon Clowney and Kyle Van Noy. The pending returns of safety Marcus Williams and cornerback Damarion Williams add depth to a secondary that has benefitted from surprise breakouts by Stone and cornerback Brandon Stephens.

There is already a lot to like about Baltimore’s roster. There wasn’t a glaring void that needed to be filled Tuesday. Could the Ravens have used a home run hitter in the backfield? Yes, but they already have one of the better rushing attacks in the league and Jackson is one of the NFL’s most prolific home run hitters with the ball in his hands. Would they have benefitted from another edge rusher? Of course, but they do lead the league in sacks and have three more than any other team.

Tuesday was always about whether Baltimore could get better within reason. Instead, DeCosta and company found ample reasons to stand pat.

(Photo of Eric DeCosta: Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)