Ravens Walk Delicate Balance With Salary Cap

The NFL set the 2022 salary cap at $208.2 million per club.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — The Ravens are not afraid to spend money with the salary cap.

However, it's a delicate balance trying to sign free agents, pay draft picks and also have money leftover to spend during the season in case there are injuries. 

The NFL set the 2022 salary cap at $208.2 million per club.

As it stands, the Ravens have $8.4 million to spend, according to OverTheCap.com. Baltimore has already signed safety Marcus Williams, offensive tackle Morgan Moses and defensive tackle Michael Pierce in free agency. 

Teams have aggressively pursued free agents and were willing to pay exorbitant salaries this offseason, but these contracts could bog them down in the coming years. 

"If you look at the 10-year CBA that expired after the 2020 season, over that 10-year period, the aggregate salary cap, if you add up each of the 10 salary caps, was like $1.526 billion," former team president Dick Cass said. "We ended up spending $53 million over that amount, so, roughly, we’re $5 million over [per] year. The cap, in the end, drives you – in terms of cash spending – roughly back to the cap. 

"So, teams might spend a lot of money this year, and next year, three, four, five, six years from now, that’ll come back, and they’ll have less money to spend. So, I think every year you’re going to see some teams spending a lot more money than other teams, but in the end, it comes back to the median, basically, to the salary cap.”

The Ravens could create more salary-cap space by restructuring contracts of current players. It's a process that will be needed as the team tries to add more players this offseason.