The news that Pro Bowl (somehow) quarterback Tyler Huntley will sign his restricted free agency tender with the Ravens isn’t a surprise, given that the window for signing an offer sheet with another team has closed.
But here’s the question. With the Ravens having only a right of first refusal and no compensation if another team had signed Huntley, why didn’t anyone pursue him?
He’s making only $2.627 million in 2023. It’s a bargain. It’s better than a bargain. It’s a steal. He has eight career regular-season starts. He almost led Baltimore to an upset of the Bengals in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh has said there’s no question in his mind that Huntley can be a starting quarterback in the NFL.
So why didn’t another team make Huntley an offer? Why didn’t another team consider adding him as a starter, or as a backup making more than a mere $2.627 million?
We’ve wondered in the past whether collusion occurs in the restricted free agency market. We flagged the possibility 10 years ago. Days later, the Patriots signed Steelers receiver Emmanuel Sanders to an offer sheet. Pittsburgh matched it.
The Patriots started using it more often. In 2016, they signed Bills receiver Chris Hogan to an offer sheet. Buffalo didn’t match. A year later, the Patriots signed Bills running back Mike Gillislee to an offer sheet. When the Bills didn’t match that one, they received a fifth-round pick as compensation.
A player last changed teams, as best we can tell, five years ago, when the Ravens signed Saints receiver Willie Snead to an offer sheet and the Saints didn’t match. There was no compensation, given the level of the tender. Just days earlier, the Saints signed Bears receiver Cameron Meredith to an offer sheet that the Bears didn’t match.
Two years ago, the Patriots applied a second-round tender to up-and-coming cornerback J.C. Jackson. As we reported at this time, his representatives called every team in the league, but none would pursue him.
As explained at the time, there was a sense that some teams won’t pursue restricted free agents from other teams, as a courtesy. Basically, the position for some teams in situations like this quite possibly has become, “We don’t go after theirs, they don’t go after ours.”
Of course, the Bears signed Bills offensive lineman Ryan Bates to an offer sheet last year. Buffalo matched it. So either there isn’t collusion, or then-first-year G.M. Ryan Poles had yet to get the memo.
If it’s collusion, it would be difficult if not impossible to prove. If it’s not collusion, it means that most teams are independently and coincidentally choosing not to try to make their teams better by trying to sign players whose contracts have expired and, in many cases, can be gotten for no compensation -- if the current team doesn’t match the offer.
As to Huntley specifically, it’s simply odd that no other team would try to sign him, especially since the Ravens currently are caught in an impasse with franchise-tagged starter Lamar Jackson. Huntley is Baltimore’s obvious Plan B, if Lamar ends up missing Week One, and maybe beyond. At a minimum, Huntley will lead the transition to the Todd Monken offense during OTAs, mandatory minicamp, and possibly part or all of training camp.
A rival team could have thrown a wrench into the Ravens’ plans at the most important position on the field. At a minimum, someone else could have forced the Ravens to pay more for Huntley than a mere $2.627 million.
It apparently wasn’t even a consideration. Huntley didn’t take a single visit. His name never came up, not once, as a player that another team would pursue.
Look around the league. Huntley could have potentially competed to start in places like Houston, Las Vegas, Washington, Carolina, New Orleans, Atlanta, or Tampa Bay. He could have been a bridge to Kyler Murray becoming healthy in Arizona. Huntley could have been a viable backup to franchise quarterbacks in Buffalo, Kansas City, Philadelphia, or Cincinnati.
Again, he’s making only $2.627 million. How much more would it have taken to snatch him away from the Ravens? How much above $2.75 million would the Ravens have paid before not matching the offer?
If anyone considered it, they did a nice job of keeping it completely quiet. And the Ravens have benefited from it, allowing them to keep a low-cost insurance policy against the possibility that Lamar Jackson won’t sign.
