With the Super Bowl in the rearview mirror, the Ravens and 31 other NFL teams will start financially retooling to advance to the 2024-25 postseason.
Joel Corry of CBS Sports recently looked inside at key offseason dates starting with the first week of the 2024 league year, which begins March 13.
Some dates will free up cap space for Baltimore, while others will force GM Eric DeCosta to make hard decisions.
Here is the list of players and their salary cap charges whose contracts void today. These charges now become dead money pic.twitter.com/IFwTawMp4V
— Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) February 19, 2024
Baltimore had a 4:00 PM EST deadline to extend six players to face dead salary cap hits, and only Nelson Agholor agreed to a new deal.
At 4 p.m. Monday, the contracts of four pending free agents — right guard Kevin Zeitler, running back Gus Edwards, safety Geno Stone and cornerback Rock Ya-Sin — will void.
Void years are a way for teams to manipulate the salary cap by placing fake years on the end of a contract to defer cap charges to the future.
Odell Beckham Jr.’s one-year, $15 million contract was recently reworked to remove void years. That allows the Ravens to designate Beckham as a post-June 1 release if an extension is not reached by March 16.
Baltimore will now carry nearly $10 million in dead money on their 2024 salary cap since none of those five players were re-signed.
Gus Edwards Contract automatically voids ($1.84M of dead cap)
Edwards led Baltimore’s running backs with a career-high 813 yards rushing and tied for fifth in the NFL with 13 rushing touchdowns. Still, he averaged a career-low 4.1 yards per attempt after averaging at least 5.0 yards per carry his previous four seasons.
Kevin Zeitler Contract Automatically voids ($4.86M dead cap)
Zeitler was named to his first Pro Bowl this season and has talked about returning to Baltimore.
It’s possible that the Ravens will re-sign J.K. Dobbins and Zeitler, which General Manager Eric DeCosta acknowledged at the team’s end-of-season press conference.
Geno Stone Contract Automatically voids ($600,000 dead cap)
Stone started 11 of 17 games for Baltimore this season, finishing second in the NFL with 7 interceptions, along with 68 tackles and 9 passes defended.
With Marcus Williams and Kyle Hamilton entrenched as starters, Stone could move on.
Rock Ya-Sin 2024-27 Years Automatically Void ($1.6M dead cap)
The 27-year-old cornerback was a consistent contributor as a reserve cornerback this season while also seeing significant playing time on special teams, tallying 13 tackles over 14 appearances.
Odell Beckham 2024-2027 years automatically void 2/19/2024 ($11.068M dead cap)
DeCosta must decide if the three-time Pro Bowler will be back in Baltimore next year, which is one of the team’s many questions this offseason.
Beckham had his one-year, $15 million contract reworked, with substantial void years removed from the deal.
That restructure allows Baltimore to use a post-June one release if an extension is not reached by March 14. Doing so would spread the dead money in the deal over this year and following rather than have it all hit in 2024, meaning $2.767 million would count for this year and $8.301 million for 2025.
