Ihedigbo

[LukeDaniel]

I would not. Sometimes players play better knowing they have no contract for the following season. Signing someone too soon may allow them to play at a less intense level. No, let's have Ihedigbo and D. Smith hungry and pushing themselves to their limits in 2013... Bc

I don't disagree with your premise. In the case of Darryl Smith, he was a hard-nosed, high-effort player in obscurity in Jacksonville, so I really don't think his hunger is going to be tempered by a new contract.

In fact, to play the role of devil's advocate, sometimes once a player gets a contract with guaranteed money under their belt, they are likely to play harder, as the financial risk of sustaining an injury is minimized.

[LukeDaniel]

Sorry, but there's no way they're extended during the season, much less after just three weeks. We have no idea how they're going to contribute down the road and it isn't unlikely at all they will seem replaceable by the time the season ends. Also, why would they (Ihedigbo and Smith) sign a contract now, both of them seem poised for a career year, and you can rest assured that they believe their value is going to increase.

I feel like there's a lot of players where people say "Oh, we need to lock them up early, can't let them test free agency!". But actually, there's only a handful of players who the FO have re-signed without letting them hit FA: Flacco, Rice, Suggs, Ngata, Webb and Koch (I actually think they also re-signed Cox before FA, but who cares). Anyways, my point is that the FO don't really extend people early unless they're A) franchise cornerstones or B) specialists, for some reason.

So while we have a lot of players who would be nice to see re-signed, and probably on or two who is actually going to be re-signed, don't expect the FO to consider them "must-have". None of our free agents are in the same class as the guys mentioned above.

You make good points. To counter your points, I would argue that:

1) I do agree that the Ravens would have to break from precedent to want to resign Ighedibo and Smith. Typically (as you mentioned) they only give those in-season, pre-free agency extensions to their big dogs (Ogden and C-Mac are the main ones that come to mind). The Ravens historically only give their extensions after the final snap of football, which means they pay near full price, as their leverage is largely lost. Sometimes you can pay 60-70% in season compared to what you would pay in Mid-march. The Ravens always seem to be extreme value shoppers in free agency, so it's always puzzled me why they don't look for value extensions during the regular season.

2) To your "no idea how they're going to contribute down the road" line of thinking, I would argue that we pretty much know the type of player that Darryl Smith is after ten years in the league. Ighedibo has plenty of NFL experience as well, although not a ton as a starter. I'd be a little more reluctant to tie as much guaranteed money into him as we would with Smith.

3) There is a clear incentive for both players to re-sign as soon as they can. Smith has had a really nice NFL career, but he has had some injuries of late. He is at a stage where a two year offer is about the max he could expect and collecting whatever guaranteed money he can may not be a bad career strategy for him. If the Ravens offered him 2 years-$4.5 million with a $1m signing bonus and a guaranteed contract for next year that carried a 2014 cap figure of around $2m, that would be a win for both parties. Ighedibo has never hit a big NFL pay day, so 2 years-$4m with a guaranteed 2014 contract would be enticing for him as well. Unlike with Smith, though, I'd wait until later in the season with Iggy since he just doesn't have quite the track record as a starter.

I don't expect it to happen, since over the last 6-7 years, in-season extensions have been non-existent. I'm just saying I wish they would do it more often to get a better value on players worth keeping.

[Rxdoxx]

Part of my perception was 2012's signing of FAs to shore up ST.
We had a number of new players arrive with the tag, great on ST.
Corey Graham for one, who IIRC was promised a shot at some playing time on D, and he sure worked out when Lardarius went down.
There was Sean Considine, who didn't make much of a lasting impression in the end.
And there was James Ihedigbo, who also looked like another ST stocking.
Admittedly I for one did not expect him to be much more than ST, maybe a top side of a Brendon Ayanbadejo who went from ST to some snaps at LB.
Seeing Ihedigbo emerge as he is doing this early in 2013, is somewhat unexpected to me (and apparently to others here) because Ihedigbo being cast as a starter was a non-issue with his arrival. He kind of "snuck in" under the radar with a number of other ST players.
2 emerged, we thought Corey was the exception of the 3, turns out Considine was the exception on the other end of the scale, now that Ihedigbo has also made the transition to starter.

[CopRaven]

You make good points. To counter your points, I would argue that:

1) I do agree that the Ravens would have to break from precedent to want to resign Ighedibo and Smith. Typically (as you mentioned) they only give those in-season, pre-free agency extensions to their big dogs (Ogden and C-Mac are the main ones that come to mind). The Ravens historically only give their extensions after the final snap of football, which means they pay near full price, as their leverage is largely lost. Sometimes you can pay 60-70% in season compared to what you would pay in Mid-march. The Ravens always seem to be extreme value shoppers in free agency, so it's always puzzled me why they don't look for value extensions during the regular season.

2) To your "no idea how they're going to contribute down the road" line of thinking, I would argue that we pretty much know the type of player that Darryl Smith is after ten years in the league. Ighedibo has plenty of NFL experience as well, although not a ton as a starter. I'd be a little more reluctant to tie as much guaranteed money into him as we would with Smith.

3) There is a clear incentive for both players to re-sign as soon as they can. Smith has had a really nice NFL career, but he has had some injuries of late. He is at a stage where a two year offer is about the max he could expect and collecting whatever guaranteed money he can may not be a bad career strategy for him. If the Ravens offered him 2 years-$4.5 million with a $1m signing bonus and a guaranteed contract for next year that carried a 2014 cap figure of around $2m, that would be a win for both parties. Ighedibo has never hit a big NFL pay day, so 2 years-$4m with a guaranteed 2014 contract would be enticing for him as well. Unlike with Smith, though, I'd wait until later in the season with Iggy since he just doesn't have quite the track record as a starter.

I don't expect it to happen, since over the last 6-7 years, in-season extensions have been non-existent. I'm just saying I wish they would do it more often to get a better value on players worth keeping.

Yeah, with regards to the bolded part, I don't recall having ever seen someone sign a contract halfway through/towards the end of the season. Ihedigbo and Smith are certainly guys who could be re-signed after the season, but I don't see why we would buck the league-wide trend of not re-signing guys mid-season just to save a few bucks on those two.

I think we're all pretty surprised by Ihedigbo's play (most of us thought for sure the Huff and Elam would be the starters), and therefore I would not consider it unlikely if he somewhat falters down the stretch. Like many have said, yesterday was probably the best game of his career (not that I have seen enough of him to know), but don't you think it's a little prematurely to talk about re-signing him?

I get you point about Smith, but isn't our hope that Arthur Brown will prove to be the man in the middle for the future? I'm not saying that I think Smith will start playing bad as the year goes on, but I would just hope that young players like Brown and maybe Bynes play really well, so that we don't sit in February and think that we HAVE to re-sign Smith.

It's true that they're both older players who's not going to get any long-term offers, but right now they're on pace to being significantly more wanted than they were this off-season. Smith is getting some Pro Bowl buzz already, so he has plenty of reason to believe that his value will go up as the season goes on.

[iggyman555]

http://www.baltimoreravens.com/video...8-c55a1c1c0692

[pslholder96]

http://www.baltimoreravens.com/video...8-c55a1c1c0692

Well he's definitely got the right attitude that's for sure. That's a ravens personality right there. If he continues to perform at this level, extending him makes sense.