Via Baltimore Sun: The Ravens have traded veteran wide receiver Anquan Boldin to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a sixth-round draft pick, according to league sources with knowledge of the situation. Boldin, 32, was involved in a contract dispute with the Ravens, who asked him to lower his $6 million base salary by $2 million.
Count this one in the category of dumb moves to save money by a Super Bowl Champion in my opinion. Read that second sentence again. They wanted to save TWO MILLION DOLLARS! Instead of paying the guy that made Joe Flacco look really good during the playoffs $8 million they traded him to the team they just beat in the Super Bowl….FOR A SIXTH ROUND PICK. You know what that means Baltimore? They just salary dumped you’re most consistent offensive player. A guy who said he only wanted to play for the Ravens. A guy who allows Torrey Smith room to run. The guy that Flacco, the guy you just made the highest paid quarterback of all time, is most comfortable throwing the ball to. I mean what’s the deal?
You know who’s pissed right now? Joe Flacco, Torrey Smith, Dennis Pitta and anyone else that got 1 on 1 match-ups because Boldin was on the field. The guy is your classic possession receiver and he worked so well on this team. He only had one year left and only wanted to play for the Ravens. Do the Ravens really want to roll into next year with Jacoby Jones as their number 2 receiver? Maybe Boldin should have worked more with them, but they knew his deal; he had one year left and wanted to play it out in Baltimore with his friends and now he has to decide if he wants to play in San Francisco next year. Just seems like a bum move by Baltimore and I don’t like it.
So what are they going to do? I imagine they didn’t make this move without a bunch of other plans in place. The cheap option is to draft someone with their first round pick and lean on Flacco and Torrey to guide him. They could target a wide out in Free Agency but that gets costly unless they’re going to pick up a veteran minimum guy. In theory they could sign a Welker or Amendola and keep his cap number down in year 1 but eventually that will come back to bite you much like the Boldin deal has. Plus you’re going to have to hope that player can fit in on this team.
I’m just so confused by this deal and I hope Ozzie knows what he’s doing.
