Yanda’s ‘glowing review’ opens door
Retired lineman helped team lure ex-Giant Zeitler to Ravens on free-agent deal
When Kevin Zeitler was listening to recruiting pitches during free agency, he got a sense for how different teams wanted to run their offense, how their coaches wanted to teach and where their franchises stood competitively.
But amid a handful of offers, one voice might’ve helped push the Ravens’ threeyear, $22.5 million offer over the top: former All-Pro guard Marshal Yanda’s.
After the New York Giants released Zeitler, their starting right guard and top offensive lineman, as a cost-cutting measure last week, the Ravens started to show interest. Yanda passed along a message to Zeitler’s agent: “Hey, reach out if you have questions.” So Zeitler did, calling up the longtime stalwart whom the Ravens never sufficiently replaced after his retirement last offseason.
“He gave a glowing review of the Ravens and how it’s great to be an O-lineman there,” Zeitler said during a virtual news conference Friday. “So it was a nice selling factor, hearing it from his point of view, and it was great.”
There were other draws, of course. The Ravens run the ball more than any team in the NFL, and Zeitler is no different from Yanda or any other lineman currently in Baltimore. He likes pushing defenders backward.
“Every O-lineman you ask, ‘Hey, what do you want to do?’ They all want to be run blocking,” he said. “So that usually means you have the lead or you’re controlling the game or dominating up front. And the Ravens have established that that’s what they’re going to do, and I have a hard time believing they’re going to change that up now.”
He was also happy to be on Lamar Jackson’s team for once. In 2018, Jackson and the Ravens beat Zeitler and the Browns, in what was Zeitler’s final Browns game, to clinch a playoff berth. Last season, the
Ravens easily handled the Giants in Baltimore. Zeitler also knows Ravens quarterbacks coach James Urban from his days with the Cincinnati Bengals, and he got to know kicker Justin Tucker and defensive tackle Brandon Williams on CBS’ NFL talent show, “Most Valuable Performer.”
Ultimately, Zeitler said, every finalist had a “very compelling argument.” But he came to agree with Yanda: The Ravens would be a great fit.
“When it came down to it, the teams I was choosing from, winning and being on a great, established team was definitely, no matter where I went, that was going to be part of it,” he said. “Baltimore was just, after talking to Coach [John Harbaugh], I really thought it fit what I do well with my run blocking and everything and whatnot. I just thought, for me and my family right now, Baltimore was the place to be.”
Spurned by JuJu
Wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, one of the NFL’s top remaining free agents, is re-signing with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he announced Friday. But they weren’t necessarily his best offer.
According to the NFL Network, Smith-Schuster turned down a one-year, $9 million offer from the wide receiver-needy Ravens, with another $4 million available in incentives. The Kansas City Chiefs’ one-year offer was worth $8 million, with $3 million available in incentives. The Steelers? Just $8 million in 2021.
“This is my home, they’re gonna need a wrecking ball to take me outta here!” Smith-Schuster tweeted Friday. “PITTSBURGH I LOVE YOU, LET’S GO !!!!! ”
Smith-Schuster, 24, averaged a career-low 8.6 yards per catch last season, but he has three 900-plus-yard seasons since entering the NFL in 2017. With Dez Bryant and Willie Snead IV not expected to return in free agency, the Ravens don’t have a player under contract who’s reached that threshold even once.
A handful of potential starting wide receivers remain unsigned — Kenny Golladay, T.Y. Hilton, Sammy Watkins and Antonio Brown are available — but the market has thinned considerably since the NFL’s legal tampering period opened Monday.
The Ravens have had one of the NFL’s least productive wide receiver rooms since quarterback Lamar Jackson entered the NFL; last season, they were the only team with under 2,000 receiving yards at the position (137 catches for 1,729 yards). Marquise “Hollywood” Brown has shown flashes of being a potential No. 1 receiver, and Miles Boykin and Devin Duvernay are both former third-round picks with impressive athleticism, but the team lacks a proven possession wide receiver.
Asked about the Ravens’ needs at the position last week, general manager Eric DeCosta said the team has “an idea of what we’re looking for. It doesn’t really serve my purposes to tell you exactly what we’re looking for, player-wise, but we do talk about that stuff.”
He added: “Our goal is to build a diverse team with a lot of different types of players that can help you in a lot of different situations, with depth at all positions, that fit under the salary cap and give you a chance, long-term, to succeed.”
Glad to be back
A year ago, Derek Wolfe didn’t know how many teams wanted him. A dislocated elbow had ended what the defensive end called the “best season of my career,” and the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic had made medical checkups difficult. Free agency opened March 18; he didn’t agree to a one-year, $3 million deal with the Ravens until 10 days later.
This year, the pandemic was problematic again. Wolfe was healthy, but a shrinking salary cap was squeezing the NFL’s middle class, pushing players into free agency and limiting the funds for others who’d normally be sure-thing signings.
“I think COVID kind of screwed me twice,” Wolfe said during a virtual news conference Thursday. He added: “I’m just grateful to be on a team that wants me.”
That would be the Ravens, again. On Tuesday, Wolfe signed a three-year extension worth a reported $12 million. The night before, he’d tweeted, “Been undervalued since day 1.”
On Thursday, he acknowledged the uncertainty of his return to Baltimore — or an NFL roster this year.
“With the cap being how it was, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” Wolfe said, referring to the NFL salary cap’s fall from $198.2 million to $182.5 million this league year. “I wasn’t sure if I was even going to get a chance to play football again, with the cap being the way it was. I was like, ‘Well, maybe [the Ravens] are going to just bet on these young players and count on the draft.’ So I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen. But I’m really excited to be back.”
Wolfe, 31, was one of the Ravens’ top run defenders last year, and he said that “whatever they ask me to do, I’m going to do it.” Coach John Harbaugh has called him one of the team’s best leaders, and, along with defensive end Calais Campbell and defensive tackle Brandon Williams, Wolfe helped anchor a much-improved run defense in 2020.