Baltimore Ravens

Cornerback Mansoor Delane has a handful of pre-draft visits planned for the coming days.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Delane is slated to meet with the Bengals, Ravens and Commanders before the window to visit teams closes this week. Delane also spent time with the Dolphins and Giants recently.

Delane is bidding to be the top cornerback selected this year. He spent the 2025 season at LSU after playing at Virginia Tech and was an All-American during his lone season in Baton Rouge. He had 45 tackles and two interceptions for the Tigers.

Avieon Terrell and Jermod McCoy are also at the top of the list of cornerback prospects this year.

The Giants hosted veteran defensive tackle D.J. Reader for a free agent visit on Monday, according to Jordan Schultz of The Schultz Report.

Reader, 31, recently visited the Ravens and is expected to sign with a new team post-draft.

He ranks 40th on PFT’s list of this year’s top free agents.

Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence has requested a trade, but the team wanted to add at the position anyway after ranking 31st against the run in 2025.

Reader started every game for the Lions last season and finished the year with 28 tackles. He also played 15 games for the Lions in 2024 and previously appeared in 105 games for the Bengals and Texans.

He has 328 tackles, 12.5 sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery in his career.

In two different rulings issued less than 15 months apart, the internal grievance system created by the NFL and the NFL Players Association found that, essentially, the NFL invited its teams to collude on the issue of fully-guaranteed contracts but the teams did not accept.

The first part is stunning, and in many ways unprecedented as it relates to the NFL. In response to the Deshaun Watson contract (five years, $230 million, fully guaranteed), the league sounded the alarm at the 2022 annual meeting.

From the notes of the presentation made to the teams in March 2022: "[I]f guarantees continue to grow in both amount and number of players, then there’s a risk that they become the norm in contracts regardless of player quality . . . That not only has the potential to hinder roster management but set a market standard that will be difficult to walk back. Of course, all Clubs must make their own decisions. But continuing these trends can handcuff a Club long into the future.”

The teams, per both the arbitrator and the three-person appeal panel, ignored this invitation/advice.

The appeals panel recognized that the teams will never admit to collusion, and that circumstantial evidence is “the coin of the[] realm” when it comes to proving it. The panel, however, found insufficient circumstantial evidence to prove that collusion occurred.

The panel dismissed expert testimony regarding the decrease in signing bonuses and guaranteed salary after the league invited the teams to collude. The panel rejected the basic, commonsensical idea that, if the league invited them to restrict guaranteed contracts and if guaranteed contracts were thereafter restricted, the teams must have followed the league’s advice.

It’s a myopic assessment of the real world that borders on the obtuse. The 32 teams operate as a league. They enjoy an antitrust exemption as to the player workforce through a multi-employer bargaining unit. The Collective Bargaining Agreement allows the teams to give players guaranteed contracts. The mere fact that the league would even broach the subject of the teams choosing to not do something the CBA allows them to do is, as the panel found, “improper.”

What other proof is needed to show that the league and the teams colluded?

Beyond that, the appeals panel acknowledged that the text-message exchange between Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill after the Cardinals managed to avoid giving quarterback Kyler Murray a fully-guaranteed contract was “inappropriate.” The panel somehow found that Spanos thanking Bidwill for “staying strong” when it comes to not giving Murray a fully-guaranteed contract was not proof of collusion but of an “isolated incident.”

Some would call that “isolated incident” a “smoking gun.”

The appeals ruling ignores the evidence of internal communications within the Broncos organization regarding their negotiations with quarterback Russell Wilson. From the original arbitration ruling, owner Greg Penner told other members of the team’s ownership group that “there’s not[h]ing in here that other owners will consider off market (e.g. like the Watson guarantees).” Later, Penner told his partners that G.M. George Paton “feels very good about it for us as a franchise and the benchmark it sets (versus Watson) for the rest of the league.”

Why would or should the Broncos care what other owners think? The mere fact that the concern was on the radar screen shows that the Broncos were worried about running afoul of the wink-nod understanding that teams would hold the rope on the issue of fully-guaranteed contracts after the Watson deal.

Although the panel did indeed find that the league invited teams to collude, what choice did it have? The NFL didn’t just say the quiet part out loud. It put it in writing! Anyone who understands how the NFL works knows what the message was, and how it was received. The Spanos-Bidwill texts confirm it, as do the internal Broncos communications.

And while the Ravens, per the panel, did indeed offer quarterback Lamar Jackson a pair of three-year fully-guaranteed contracts, he didn’t accept them. He wanted a five-year, fully-guaranteed deal, like the one Watson had gotten. The Ravens, to paraphrase Spanos, “stayed strong.”

Did the NFL invite the teams to collude? Yes. Did the teams thereafter accept the invitation? Hell yes.

The NFL suggesting that the teams refrain from doing something that the CBA allows them to do should have been enough. The Spanos-Bidwill texts should have been enough. The Broncos’ internal communications should have been enough.

Now that the league has dodged the collusion bullet, the NFL and its teams will learn from the experience. They’ll never put anything in writing that ever could be characterized as proof of collusion. And it will become even harder — if not impossible — for the NFLPA to prove collusion when it happens.

Even if it will happen. Because the facts of the failed grievance show, in our view, that it absolutely did.

The initial ruling in the collusion grievance filed by the NFL Players Association on behalf of Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson, and Kyler Murray shed new light on the negotiations between Jackson and the Ravens that preceded his five-year deal in 2023. The appeal ruling adds a key fresh detail, too.

In two different portions of page 14 of the decision, the three-person panel writes that the Ravens twice offered three-year, fully-guaranteed contracts to Jackson.

Jackson declined both of them.

The ruling mentions none of the other key terms, like annual compensation. It’s also not mentioned whether the three-year contracts included a no-tag clause, which would have set the stage for unrestricted free agency in March 2026.

Although the Deshaun Watson contract that apparently sparked Jackson’s desire to have a fully-guaranteed contract of his own covered five years, a three-year fully-guaranteed deal gets the player all of his money along with a shorter path to another deal or free agency.

Jackson eventually signed a five-year deal with two years and part of a third fully guaranteed at signing. The rest of the third year became fully guaranteed early in the second year, and a large chunk of the fourth year ($29 million of $52 million) became fully guaranteed early in the fourth year. The fifth year has no guarantees.

But fully guaranteed is fully guaranteed. The fact that the Ravens offered Jackson a pair of three-year fully-guaranteed contracts (which is what Kirk Cousins got from the Vikings in 2018) defied the NFL’s effort as of March 2022 to persuade the teams to collude in not providing fully-guaranteed deals.

This year, plenty of the contracts signed in unrestricted free agency cover only three years. That’s better for players than having non-guaranteed back-end years, because once the full guarantees end the contracts become one-way arrangements — if the player is underperforming, the contract gets ripped up by the team; if the player is overperforming, the player is at the mercy of the team in an effort to get a raise.

It’s unknown why Jackson didn’t accept either of the fully-guaranteed deals offered by the Ravens. If they were in the neighborhood of the prevailing market value at the time ($51.5 million, set by Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts) and if they included a no-tag clause, Jackson arguably should have taken the deals.

Regardless, and based on the new appeal ruling, the Ravens offered Jackson a three-year, fully-guaranteed contract, not once but twice.

Wide receiver Denzel Boston has made a lot of visits around the league ahead of the draft and he is adding Baltimore to the list on Friday.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Boston is meeting with the Ravens. He spent time with the Panthers earlier this week and has also met with the Raiders, Steelers, Browns, Dolphins and a number of other teams while looking for his NFL landing spot.

Boston is entering the league off of back-to-back strong seasons at Washington and will be trying to join recent Huskie products Rome Odunze, Ja’Lynn Polk and Jalen McMillan as an early pick in the draft.

With the draft getting underway in less than two weeks, the pre-draft visit window will come to an end next week and Boston will turn to waiting to find out where he’ll land after a busy few weeks getting to know his potential landing spots.

Defensive end Charles Omenihu signed with the Commanders as a free agent this offseason, but he spent the last three seasons with the Chiefs and that gave him experience in trying to stop two of the league’s top quarterbacks.

Omenihu was asked to weigh in on facing Bills quarterback Josh Allen and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. He didn’t hesitate before saying he thought Allen would win a Super Bowl first if the two players switched teams and that Allen’s habit of turning the ball over isn’t enough of a drawback to make up for the book that defenses have put together on stopping Jackson.

“I don’t think the league has truly figured [Allen] out,” Omenihu said on the Speakeasy podcast. “With Lamar, honestly, you bring a five-man rush on him and collapse that pocket, he’s drifting backwards and, unfortunately, he might make a play that isn’t going to be the best play for the Ravens. With Josh, he’s going to drift backwards, run around, and he’s so hard to tackle. He’s a large human being, hard to get down, he can make every throw. Every throw from no matter where he’s at. His arm strength is unbelievable. I don’t think Lamar has that big amount of arm strength like Josh does. Like I said, I think you’ve figured out Lamar. You come after him, you close all the lanes, you five-man rush him and you cover his guys, and I think you get it done. It’s been shown.”

Neither Alllen nor Jackson has made it to the Super Bowl yet, but the Bills and Ravens are currently the betting favorites to be the AFC Champion so that could change at the end of the 2026 season. If it does, the quarterback left standing will have a big leg up in the legacy building battle.

It’s been an offseason of major changes for the Ravens, but none of them have involved tight end Mark Andrews.

There have been moments in the past when it looked like Andrews might move on from Baltimore, but no break ever came and Andrews is the only tight end back from the team’s final season with John Harbaugh as their head coach. Isaiah Likely followed Harbaugh to the Giants while Charlie Kolar signed with the Chargers in moves that set Andrews up as the clear No. 1 tight end for new head coach Jesse Minter and offensive coordinator Declan Doyle.

Andrews said on Wednesday that he has “always felt” like the top guy and that he thinks the new offensive scheme is going to suit him well.

“I don’t think that ever changes,” Andrews said, via the team’s website. “But I think that for [Likely], I’m excited for him and his opportunity. I’m excited for Charlie and his opportunity. I’m going to continue to get better and grow my game, and I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunities in this offense.”

Andrews had 48 catches for 422 yards and five touchdowns last season. That yardage total was the lowest of his career, but it sounds like he expects his production to reverse course this fall.

Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has skipped most of the voluntary offseason workouts during his eight-year NFL career. He showed up on Day 1 of the Jesse Minter era, though.

Wide receiver Zay Flowers said on Wednesday that he believes the two-time NFL MVP is more motivated than ever.

“He’s always ready. . . . He’s even more ready this year,” Flowers said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. “He’s excited about the coaching staff. He’s excited about getting to work with [new offensive coordinator] Declan [Doyle]. So yeah, he’s ready to go. He wants to finish. He wants to get a ring.”

Other team leaders, including Derrick Henry, Kyle Hamilton and Roquan Smith, were also present for the start of the strength and conditioning work this week.

The Ravens have not reached the Super Bowl since 2012, getting as close as the AFC Championship Game in 2023. Jackson is 76-31 in the regular season but only 3-5 in the postseason.

“It doesn’t matter who it is, you are going to have a window, and you have to just seize your opportunity,” Flowers said. “And this is our window, I feel like.”

The Ravens were 6-7 with Jackson as the starter in 2025, his first losing season, and the team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2022. The Ravens fired John Harbaugh after 18 seasons, replacing him with Minter, and giving Jackson and the team a fresh start.

The Seahawks set a new standard for the wide receiver market when they signed Jaxon Smith-Njigba to a contract extension last month and one of the players who could be impacted by the deal is Ravens wideout Zay Flowers.

Flowers was selected a couple of picks after Smith-Njigba in the first round of the 2023 draft and is also eligible for a contract extension this offseason. On Wednesday, Flowers offered congratulations to the Seahawks receiver while saying that he isn’t “really paying attention” to his own contract as he prefers to focus on football while his agents work on the business side of things.

Flowers did add that he’s not looking to play anywhere but Baltimore.

“I don’t want to go nowhere else,” Flowers said, via the team’s website.

The Ravens can exercise their fifth-year option on Flowers’ contract, which would set him up to make $27.298 million for the 2027 season. That will likely happen if the two sides can’t agree to a longer deal before the option deadline on May 1.

Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton told reporters on Wednesday that he was shocked to learn of John Harbaugh’s firing in January, but the start of the team’s offseason program under new head coach Jesse Minter has him “excited for a new era” in Baltimore.

Hamilton is particularly excited about the impact that Minter and new defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver can have on the team’s defense. The team fell to 18th in points allowed while going 8-9 last season and Hamilton said there’s been clear messaging from the new staff that the work on that side of the ball has been unacceptable.

“I don’t think we’re reinventing the wheel or anything,” Hamilton said. “We just got to get back to or just re-establish dominance, especially defense. Offense, they got their own thing going on and I’m sure they’ll be alright. I think defensively it’s been pretty disappointing, just some results that we’ve had. We’ve had some good seasons, but we’ve also had some bad seasons and those are inexcusable. Especially here. I think confronting that, him along with coach Weaver, they’ve both done a great job so far laying out what’s been in the past and where we want to go in the future. The standard has not been met and upheld and we need to kind of fix that.”

Minter coached under Harbaugh earlier in his career and the expectation in Baltimore is that he’ll be able to get the team moving in the right direction quickly. The defense will have a lot to do with his chances of success and Hamilton’s early review is an encouraging one for the unit’s mindset.