 The idea of being a free agent in demand, private jets, presidential suites, waggle, Tomahawks is alluring, but the Ravens are planning to try to sign Roquan Smith before the end of the season. And that is an excerpt from the athletic and article written by Dan Pompey. Very good article, very well put together. Make sure you check it out when you get a chance. But YouTube team, keep it clean. What's going on? It's engraving here with another video. Now, I told people back when Roquan Smith was first acquired by the Baltimore Ravens. This guy is not and will not be a rental. They're not just bringing him over here for a second and a fifth round pick and AJ Klein just to be like, oh yeah, you know what? You can just play the rest of the season here and then go be a free agent. Yeah, we'll take a third round comp pick. No, no, no, no, no. Everybody should have known that that was never and would never be the plan, especially for a defensive player that they acquired in the middle of the season and these being the Baltimore Ravens. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You knew Roquan Smith wasn't going anywhere at all. So my expectation was always that the Ravens were gonna be trying to re-sign Roquan Smith, sign him to an extension. And I figured that it would definitely be very high on their priority list this coming off season, but this is where the twist came in. This is where I got caught by surprise because with them trying to re-sign him before this season is even over, I was like, oh, well, okay then. And you know what? That actually gives me a little bit more hope when it comes to somebody else that is also a pending free agent for the Baltimore Ravens. And I'm sure you all know who that is. But before we get there, this article, it was wonderfully put together. It just talked about Roquan Smith, his role to becoming a Baltimore Raven. It talked about, of course, we all remember beginning of this season, how he wanted to get a deal done. He wanted to sign an extension with the Chicago Bears. He wanted to be paid for all of his hard work. He had established himself as one of the best linebackers in the game and he wanted the stats. I mean, excuse me, he wanted the money to show for it. And the Bears apparently offered him a deal, but that deal had so many de-escalators and whatnot. And he was like, there's so many people in this league that are making over 15 mil per year inside a linebacker, but none of them have these de-escalators in their contract. So he said that was a no-go. And bad business like that can sort of leave a sour taste in your mouth. It was also talked about how before, during the season, Eric Dacosta, he checked in with the Bears, checked in with Ryan Poles on Roquan Smith. But Poles was like, no, no, no. And he had just went off against the Patriots. He had an all pro game against the Patriots. And I remember watching that game. And I think I may have even tweeted it out. I said, man, this dude, Roquan Smith, he putting on for his next team. He is putting off for his next team. I don't know who it's gonna be, but he put on his show for whoever gonna trade for him. But then they had a blowout lost either a week or two weeks after that. And then that's when Ryan Poles hit up Eric Dacosta. It was like, hey, big dog, left him a voicemail. I said, hey, call me back. And Eric Dacosta, of course, circled back around and they made it happen. Again, for the second round pick, fifth round pick, and AJ Klein. And he said, Eric Dacosta asked Ryan Poles, hey, are you willing to pay most of his salary? Cause the Ravens are tight on cap space and whatnot. And he was like, yeah, I'll do it. I'll take that on. So that was a, I feel like it was just a win-win trade for both sides, for the Ravens and for the Bears. Bears are offloading somebody who they weren't gonna resign. Ravens are bringing on somebody who you know they wanna resign. And here we are. Roquan Smith, he joined the Ravens. They said he picked up the playbook in a couple of days and he was on it. They continuously talk about, and in the article they mentioned it too, how he's such a team player. They said him and Patrick Queen, they always are together. They going out for lunch, getting haircuts together, hanging out at Marlon Humphrey's house, just enjoying themselves. But they obviously work well together too. And it's nice because when you have an off-field relationship with somebody that you have an on-field relationship with, it just can create this even bigger rapport and it's even bigger chemistry that shows as we have seen with a Roquan Smith and Patrick Queen on the field. We see how these two work with each other. And with Patrick Queen, don't get it twisted. Before Roquan Smith even got to the Ravens, Patrick Queen had started playing a lot better. He was killing it. But then when Roquan Smith joined the Ravens, it took Patrick Queen's game to a whole another level on top of the high level that he was already playing at. So it just made him better. They make each other's job that much easier and that's what it's all about. You want guys around that'll make your job that much easier. We can relate to it in the workplace, so they can also certainly relate to it on the football field. And that's certainly what has been Roquan Smith has had an immediate major impact for these Baltimore Ravens, literally from jump. But now, my question with the contract, my thought process was always this. I felt like with the Baltimore Ravens this year, they were definitely going to re-sign Roquan Smith in the off-season. They were gonna sign him to an extension. It was gonna be a no-brainer for them. They were gonna make that happen. But my biggest question mark had always been, what were they gonna do with Lamar? Because I always felt like with Roquan Smith, he was gonna get his deal and they were gonna franchise tag Lamar Jackson. And what happened after that is to be determined. But now, if they actually do get this thing done and they got all the motivation too, this is a team that prides itself on defense. Obviously, they're history at inside linebacker. They kind of got one of the guys who was maybe the best to ever do it at the position. But you know, they value the position like a lot of other teams don't. The Bears are one of the teams that do. You know, they had Brian Erlach and whatnot, buckets and whatnot. But anyway, you know, this was gonna be a priority, a big priority for the Baltimore Ravens. So my thinking is this, if they can get the deal done with Roquan Smith before the end of this season, this gives me a little bit more hope, a little bit more hope that they may actually be able to get a deal done or at least work on it a lot more, put more focus and energy and effort into it. If it is truly something that they do want to get done, they'll be able to put more effort into a deal with Lamar Jackson. That will be my hope at least. That's what I hope happens. Because if they can knock this Roquan Smith deal out, if they can get it taken care of, if they can be done with it, sign them to try like a four year deal, something like that, we'll see. But if they can get that taken care of, then Lamar Jackson is, I mean, his deal will be the biggest one. And that's again, whether it comes from Ravens or somebody else, hopefully it's coming from the Ravens. But that will be the deal that they could focus on, they could put the most emphasis on that this off season and they could be like all hands on. So you ain't gotta worry about this huge deal with Roquan Smith and this huge deal with Lamar Jackson. No, Roquan Smith will be out the way already. And now you can put all your energy into a deal with Lamar Jackson. Now I know people have questioned, I myself have questioned, will the Ravens actually sign both of them? Can they sign both of them? Well, they certainly can, but will they sign both of them? That's a very, very, it's a tough question. Now, of course, me, I want them to sign both of them. I want them to keep both of them. But business is tricky. Business is scary. Business is personal. Now, Roquan Smith, just like Lamar Jackson, they both don't have agents. They both represent themselves in contract negotiations. And that was talked about in the article where Roquan Smith, he said that he actually likes it. He likes not having an agent because it's more that direct contact. It's more personal that way, but he feels like you can benefit so much from not having an agent. And it's everything has to be straightforward and that's something me, myself, I'm somebody who appreciates straightforwardness. So I love that these two guys, both Lamar Jackson and Roquan Smith are doing their own thing. Of course they got the financial advisors, they got the legal team and whatnot, but they don't have an agent. So they get to keep more of the money for themselves and they can still get these deals done. And this would be like, imagine that, both of these players, Roquan and Lamar, both no agents and both negotiating deals with the same team. And both probably will be, well, obviously Lamar, because he's a quarterback, but with Roquan Smith, he could end up having the highest deal on defense and Lamar Jackson could have the highest deal on offense, both for the same team, both with no agents. Man, that would just set the league on fire. Agents would hate it, but Raven's fans will love it. And these two could be trendsetters, both with their respective positions. So we'll see how it all works out. I definitely think that this is something that's gonna get done before this season is over. I definitely think that they're gonna re-sign Roquan Smith. They're gonna sign him to an extension before the season is done. Because if this is something that the Ravens wanna do, again, defensive player, a linebacker, and he's been playing how he's been playing, then I definitely think this is something that they will get done. And Roquan Smith will not ever be saying for the Baltimore Ravens that he is out.