Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco went from fighting to be considered elite to now playing in the big game, the Super Bowl. Analyzing his potential new contract is going to have the Ravens wishing they’d believed in him in the first place. Read more after the jump.
The Ravens could have gotten a deal done sooner and applied the franchise tag to Flacco and saved themselves a ton of money but in their defense Flacco hadn’t done much to warrant that. Now that he’s made it to the Super Bowl the Ravens will have to take a big plunge especially if they win.
Since a quarterback-needy and cap-rich team could be very tempted to give up two first-round picks for a crack at Flacco the Ravens will have to apply the exclusive franchise tag on Flacco which would prevent him from talking to other teams and which would pay Flacco the average of the five highest quarterback cap numbers for the 2013 league year. The tentative numbers are, according to a source with access to the information, $21.55 million for Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, $20.82 million for Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, $20.35 million for Giants quarterback Eli Manning, $20 million for Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, and $19.6 million for Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
That equates to an average of $20.464 million.
