Ravens and Matthew Judon fail to reach an extension before the deadline
The deadline to sign franchise-tagged players to long term deals prior to the season came and went on Wednesday at 4 pm eastern time and Baltimore Ravens’ Pro Bowl edge defender Matthew Judon was among 13 players that failed to agree to terms with their teams before it expired. That means that he’ll play the 2020 season under the tag and that his salary of $16.8 million is fully guaranteed since he officially signed his tender last month.
Judon is coming off a career year in 2019 where he earned his first Pro Bowl bid by logging a team-leading 9.5 sacks, 54 total tackles, a career-high four forced fumbles, and his 33 quarterback hits were the best of his career to date and were tied for the fourth-most in the league. He is one of the most complete edge defenders in the league with the way he can set the edge to stop the run just as well as he can generate pressure and bring down opposing quarterbacks.
Even though the two parties came to a rare compromise that pays Judon in the middle ground between the linebacker tag and the defensive end tag, the fact that they were unable to come to terms on an extension that keeps him in the fold for the foreseeable future does not bode well for the prospects for a deal to get done after this season.
The scenario most likely to play out is that Judon, who is content with playing on the one-year market value contract, will suit up and ball out for what will likely be his final season in Baltimore and help them try to win the Superbowl in the process before hitting unrestricted free agency next spring.
With all of the interior defensive line reinforcements that General Manager Eric DeCosta and company brought in this offseason via trade (Calais Campbell), free agency (Derek Wolfe) and the draft (Justin Madubuike), Judon could be instore for an even more productive season in 2020 now that he won’t be the focal point of the Ravens pass rush with so many other threats around him.
Despite making the Pro Bowl last year for the first time in his career, Judon is still an ascending talent whose best ball is still ahead of him. The former small-school product who was selected in the fifth round of the 2016 draft out of Grand Valley State has vastly outplayed his original draft position with nearly 30 sacks (28.5 to be exact) and 82 quarterback hits in his first four years in the league.
While Judon has been an absolute stud since joining the team four years ago as a developmental prospect with a tremendous amount of upside that he has been unearthing more and more each year he’s been in the league, the Ravens already have the vast majority of their cap resources on their defense with the most being in their secondary that ranks atop the league with a pair of All-Pro corners I Marlon Humphrey and Marcus Peters, safety Earl Thomas and another ascending young talent in Chuck Clark who was extended earlier this offseason.
The Ravens are currently spending more on their top-flight secondary than any other team in the league and that number will do up even higher if and when they sign Humphrey to an extension or a new deal altogether in the best year or two. They have elected to not spend nearly as much on their pass rush, the edge rusher position in particular because they value having as close to lockdown coverage as they can get rather than overpaying an above average but not quite elite-level pass rusher.
If Judon goes out and tops what he did in 2019 and breaks the double-digit sacks threshold along the way, he’ll have played himself into a big payday that likely won’t come from the team that drafted him. The Ravens seem content with the possibility of losing their homegrown budding star off the edge because they believe that their secondary can give their guys in the front seven more time to get home by plastering the targets of the opposing offense longer than they’re used too which can disrupt timing routes and create a catastrophe for a quarterback in a collapsing pocket.
The Ravens also blitz more than any other team in the league thanks to the aggressive mindset of defensive coordinator Don ‘Wink’ Martindale so that means that they can supplement what they lack in pass rush off the edge by sending more players than the offense can block.
Ever since Judon received the franchise tag designation, his name has swirled around in rumor mills as a potential trade candidate for the right price and especially leading up to and during the draft. However, since they didn’t bring in any new blood to the outside linebacker position opting to only bring back Pernell McPhee, it wouldn’t make sense to trade him away with no clear replacement waiting in the wings.
While it may seem like Judon’s days in the Charm City are numbered, Ravens Flock faithful can take some solace knowing that he will likely fetch the highest possible compensatory pick in the 2022 draft if he does indeed sign elsewhere. Given the Ravens’ track record of accumulating and hitting on picks they get from letting their coveted free agents walk, the next Judon could be selected with the pick that they were awarded when h receives his big impending pay which could be quite large given that young proven pass rushers come at a premium price in today’s NFL.
