MVN - Most Valuable Network

Will Lewis Play In Baltimore In 2009?

According to the Baltimore Sun, the Ravens are currently talking with Ray Lewis about a new deal. The middle linebacker is a free agent after this season.

At thirty-two, Lewis appears to be aging, performance and durability wise. He’s always been injury-prone, and that continued last year with arm, knee, and hand injuries. Even though the stats were there, he didn’t seem to be the same dominating player that he was in the past. Consequently, Baltimore’s defense suffered, although many other reasons contributed to their struggles.

Still, Lewis is a fan-favorite and trademark of the Ravens. They may decide to spend a lot of money on him to bring him back for a few more seasons and see what he has left. Anything more than $5.5 million a year would surprise me. However, they might be willing to dish out that much, even if he hits free agency before they can agree to a new deal with him.

If I were the Ravens, I’d let him walk. They need to start rebuilding their defense, and Lewis is not young enough to be a part of that. Baltimore may feel that they have enough talent to just get a few additional players, and see if their amazing defenses can come back.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.