On the same day star quarterback Lamar Jackson could begin negotiating elsewhere with the non-exclusive franchise tag, the Ravens also left the door open for other teams to try to sign their backup quarterback.
Ahead of the start of the new league year on Wednesday afternoon, Baltimore extended the low tender worth $2.627 million to restricted free agent Tyler Huntley. That would give general manager Eric DeCosta the right to match any potential offer sheet Huntley signs with another team, but it doesn’t give the Ravens any draft compensation should they not match the offer. The first-round tender ($6.005 million) and second-round tender ($4.304 million) were each deemed too expensive to use on Huntley, who participated in last month’s Pro Bowl after surprisingly being voted as the fourth alternate in the AFC.
Filling in for an injured Jackson for a second straight year, Huntley completed 67% of his passes and threw two touchdowns and three interceptions while playing in nearly five full regular-season games. The 25-year-old also threw two touchdowns in the wild-card playoff loss at Cincinnati, but his goal-line fumble returned for a Bengals touchdown in the fourth quarter proved to be the difference in the 24-17 final.
The Ravens didn’t tender any of their other five restricted free agents, a group that included safety Geno Stone, long snapper, Nick Moore, offensive lineman Trystan Colon, and linebackers Kristian Welch and Del’Shawn Phillips. They are all free to sign elsewhere now, but DeCosta is likely to try to re-sign at least a few of them on cheaper deals than the low restricted tender amount.
While a number of players officially hit the market on Wednesday, running back Justice Hill instead reached a two-year, $4.5 million agreement to stay in Baltimore, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. A 2019 fourth-round pick out of Oklahoma, Hill has been a standout special-teams player when healthy and rushed for a career-high 262 yards last season. He’s projected to serve as the No. 3 running back behind J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards.
The following veterans officially hit the open market as unrestricted free agents on Wednesday afternoon:
LB Vince Biegel
RB Kenyan Drake
CB Kyle Fuller
OLB Justin Houston
OT Ja’Wuan James
OLB Steven Means
CB Marcus Peters
OLB Jason Pierre-Paul
WR Demarcus Robinson
CB Kevon Seymour
WR Sammy Watkins
