The Ravens have about a week to sign C Tyler Linderbaum to a long-term contract. One veteran reporter thinks it’s not looking good. With it unfeasible to tag a center, Baltimore has no choice but to race against the clock. If they don’t have Linderbaum under contract before free agency, any number of teams will be beating down his door.
A first-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, Tyler Linderbaum has cemented himself as one of the game’s best centers. A three-time Pro Bowler, he is on the verge of resetting the center market, as Ravens GM Eric DeCosta acknowledged. And it was that public acknowledgement that Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic points to as signs of trouble.
“The Ravens aren’t thrilled with where contract negotiations stand with center Tyler Linderbaum”, he wrote as his takeaway from the Combine. “When general manager Eric DeCosta revealed that the team had made a ‘market-setting’ offer to retain the three-time Pro Bowl center, it was a significant departure from how the normally tight-lipped organization does business”.
The last time the Ravens really commented on a contract negotiation, or even leaked anything, was during their contentious talks with QB Lamar Jackson, who represented himself. Tyler Linderbaum has an agent—but he also has the leverage. As his agent well knows, his services are highly coveted, and they can’t block his path to those suitors. That, Zrebiec argues, is why DeCosta revealed the nature of their offer publicly, even if it’s no surprise.
“It suggests that a deal wasn’t close at the time of DeCosta’s comments and the Ravens are trying to get Linderbaum’s side to engage”, he wrote. “Talk in Indianapolis was that teams are lining up to take a run at Linderbaum and he’s primed to make over $20 million per year. The Ravens are running out of time to keep him off the open market”.
Right now, the Chiefs’ Creed Humphrey tops the center market at $18 million APY. The cap has risen substantially since then, and Humphrey wasn’t even a pending free agent. The Ravens did not pick up Tyler Linderbaum’s fifth-year option, nor did they sign him to an extension last year.
That is the complicating factor in drafting a first-round center. The NFL lumps all offensive linemen in one group for the purposes of determining values for fifth-year options and franchise and transition tags. But the center market is weaker than the guard, market, which is weaker than the tackle market. For the Ravens to have placed even the franchise tag on Linderbaum, it would have cost north of $25 million.
Now, Linderbaum is going to make north of $20 million per season, but how close do he and his representatives believe they can push the Ravens and other potential suitors to being in competition with the other offensive line positions? One can easily argue that the center market has been deflated—in fact, I don’t think it’s debatable.
Tyler Linderbaum will reset the market, but by how much, and how much are the Ravens willing to pay? Historically, they’ve been more than willing to let other teams overpay for their developed linemen and recoup the compensatory picks. But now they’re in a Super Bowl window with a pissed off quarterback tired of losing playoff games.
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