Ravens part ways with veteran long snapper Morgan Cox
The Baltimore Ravens announced that they have parted ways with veteran long-snapper Morgan Cox on Monday, ending his incredible 11-year tenure with the team and breaking up the best specialist trio in the league.
Cox was the often overlooked but never underappreciated member of the famous ‘Wolf Pack’ that consisted of himself, Pro Bowl punter Sam Koch and future Hall of Fame kicker Justin Tucker.
The trio had been together since Tucker’s rookie season in 2012 when the Ravens captured their second Superbowl title in franchise history.
The vast majority of Tucker’s career field goal and extra-point attempts as well as most of Koch’s punts and fake punt pass attempts since 2010 started with an almost always flawless and accurate snap from Cox.
He earned four Pro Bowl bids with the Ravens and when the AP All-Pro team decided to include long snappers this year, he became the first to be named to the First Team.
Cox played an integral role in helping Tucker become the most accurate kicker in NFL history and Koch emerging as one of if not the best punter in the league.
Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta met with Cox last week and confirmed the move during his end of the season press conference. He said that there’s a “circle of life” in the NFL, and the team will move forward with a second-year pro Nick Moore.
“You have to continue to get younger as a team,” DeCosta said. “We felt that although it was very, very difficult to move on from Morgan, it was probably something that we needed to do long term.”
Moore went undrafted out of Georgia in 2019 and spent most of 2020 on the Ravens practice squad where he was protected nearly every week and for good reason because he had to be called up to snap in Week 12 after Cox landed on the COVID-19 Reserve List during the team’s November outbreak.
He learned from one of the greatest in Cox and was among the 11 players that the Ravens signed to a futures/reserve contract last Monday.
“It’s tough, because, in my opinion, Morgan has been really one of the better Ravens over the past 11 years – his attitude, he’s overcome some injuries, his performance, just his general demeanor, his ability every single day to come in and be a leader and his attitude and the way he practices, his personality,” DeCosta said.
“We’ve been blessed for many, many years now with ‘The Wolfpack,’ with Morgan, with Sam, with Justin, to have probably the best combination of punter, long snapper, and kicker in the league. And things change. Unfortunately, it’s a tough part of this business.
“But Morgan, his class, his performance, just everything about him, will be missed and cherished in many ways. I think of him as the best long snapper in Baltimore Ravens history. As good as he is as a long snapper, he’s a better teammate and a better guy.”
The 34-year old originally joined the Ravens as an undrafted free agent out of Tennessee in 2010 and after he won the starting job as a rookie, he went on to play the seventh-most games by a player in team history.
Cox was a huge part of helping the Ravens become the league’s gold standard for special teams during the majority of his decade-plus in Baltimore and will likely be a prime candidate for the team’s Ring of Honor when he decides to retire.
