 As you all know, I have continued to be somebody that says, well, I would love for Patrick Queen to remain with the Baltimore Ravens. I would love for him to stay with the team. I just don't see it for the long term. And I came to that conclusion as soon as they traded for Roquon Smith. I just didn't see it happening. The most I saw was them possibly letting him play out through his fifth year option and then letting him go. But the way that I saw things, especially with how Eric DeCosta has done things, I saw him trading Patrick Queen before his contract was up. So he could get something more than just a third round conditional pick, which is determined based off of the type of contract that Patrick Queen could sign out as a free agent if he signed elsewhere. But a couple of days ago, Eric DeCosta, he not only said that he wanted Patrick Queen to stick around, but he also said that they would want to sign it to a contract extension and when I saw that, I said, whoa. Because initially when I read that part of the article, I was like, man, that's really that all in approach that I'm talking about, keeping as many good players as you possibly can, having amazing, excellent depth. But then something hit me and I was like, oh, okay. But before we get into that, let's read that part of the article. And it's straight from Baltimore Ravens.com. This wasn't from a reporter. This wasn't from an outside source. This wasn't one of them things where it's like, oh, we hear the Ravens are interested in signing Patrick Queen to a long term. No, no, no, no. It came straight from the Baltimore Ravens themselves. But let's listen. It says, just because the Raven signed Roquan Smith to the biggest inside linebacker contract in NFL history and drafted Trenton Simpson in the third round, doesn't mean they don't have big plans for Patrick Queen moving forward. When joining the lounge podcast this week, General Manager Eric D'Costa said he wants to ink Queen to a contract extension to if he can. People want to jump to conclusions and say, oh, Simpson is going to replace Patrick. D'Costa said, I can tell you this. Patrick Queen had a heck of a year last year. Patrick Queen is a very talented in my mind pro bowl type linebacker. He's going to have a great year this year. We want Patrick Queen on this team. We want to keep him on this team. We will at some point try to get him signed, hopefully to an extension if we can. And again, when I saw that, I was like, wow, these new Ravens, these all-in Ravens, huh? They really trying to make some stuff happen. But then I thought about it. I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Does he really want to keep Patrick Queen or does he know that Patrick Queen knows the business and he's trying to say all the right things? Reason I say that is because he could want to keep Patrick Queen all he wants to. He could want Patrick Queen to remain with the Ravens all he wants to. And that's great. I want Patrick Queen to stay with the Ravens. But Eric D'Costa, more than a lot of people, he knows and understands the business. He knows and understands the game. He knows and understands the contracts. And with this, this could just be sort of lip service from Eric D'Costa to sort of try to maybe motivate a Patrick Queen. To give Patrick Queen that public backing and let him know, like, hey, we want you around, but also while trying to give him a little push to play his best while he still remains with the team. Because if you've ever been in one of these situations where you know whether it's a relationship, whether it's like a boyfriend or girlfriend, something like that with somebody you're dating, or it's a business, you at work and you know that whether you're a contract worker or you just, you're a full-time employee, but you know, like, your time is coming to an end with your company. When you're in some type of relationship and you know that things have been going, things started off, they started off good, then they got a little bit rocky. Let me say a little bit rocky. Then in your most recent year, stuff was up and down, but you know that it's not trending in you remaining in this relationship forever. You could be out of it. You could just get in a funk, almost, where you're just going through the motions. You're not giving it your all like you normally would, especially like you did at the beginning. You may not just be all there. So in this case, I think this could actually be just trying to give Patrick Queen a little motivation. Just trying to get the most out of Patrick Queen, because it's like parents. Parents will understand more than everybody. If you have a child, your child is very talented child. Your child has just some amazing characteristics, amazing traits, but your child can't always focus those traits like they, like you would want them to. Sometimes you need to give your child a little motivation. You need to give your child a little incentive to allow that. And that incentive will motivate them to work harder and really get after. Like I know there have been times when, because we do homeschool with Carter. So there have been times when he don't feel like doing school. I may be doing math work with him, or my wife, she may be doing language arts or whatever. And Carter may just, he may not feel like that. He may not be in the mood to do it. And we know that he has all the capability and ability in the world to get it done and to do a good job of it. But on that particular day or that particular moment, he just may not be feeling it. So you may think, we might get frustrated a bit, but you're like, oh man, okay. We know you can do it, but why you ain't do it? All right, you know what? If you can knock this assignment out, if you do a good job on this assignment, like we know you can, we'll go to the Lego store, we'll go get a Lego. Something like that, some type of incentive. And then Carter will channel that energy, he'll regain that focus, and then he will knock whatever assignment it is out the park because we gave him an incentive for him to do the job. It sounds like the same thing with Eric DeCosta and Patrick Queen. To me, it just sound like he's just trying to give him some incentive, some motivation for him to still do the job. I do still think, I still think that he will not remain with the Ravens for the long term. But hey, we'll see, we'll see. I've been wrong about some things this off season, and if I'm wrong about this one too, okay. But this way it gets tricky because, obviously, we know, like, if you want to keep somebody, you can keep somebody. If you want to do all these moves and finagle the cap and all that, we know you can. Ravens, again, Ravens are like the kings this year of void years. The kings, they even got void years on Rocky scenes there too. They got void years on Lamar's deal. They've been using these void years, obviously on Odell Beckham Junior, like they're using the void years, whoa, okay. But so if they really wanted to make it happen, they can. But I just, I don't think they will. And I wonder, I wonder if there's a backstory to this too, because we remember with Chuck Clark, he just got traded to the Jets this off season for like, I think it was a six or seven round pick, I forgot exactly what it was. But it came out last year. We remember last year when Kyle Hamilton got drafted, Chuck Clark requested to be traded. He wanted to be out. You heard all these stories and stuff about Chuck Clark wanting to, requesting to trade for the Baltimore Ravens. And then I didn't find out until this off season, after Chuck Clark got traded to the Jets, that the Ravens tried to trade him last year, but they were unsuccessful. And I was like, whoa, oh, they were trying, but they didn't do it. But guess what happened? Ravens, they tried to trade him last year. They were unsuccessful. They drafted Kyle Hamilton. They had Simon Marcus Williams. So it's like they had a plethora of safeties. But what did they do for Chuck Clark? They adjusted his contract. They reworked his contract. And they gave him some more incentives that he could make. So they gave him that motivation. And again, the incentives for him to, hey, Chuck Clark, we know you're requested to be traded. You didn't want to be here anymore, especially given the situation with the safety position and whatnot. We get it, but you know what? For you being a great leader, being a great teammate and all that, for you not having a bad attitude about things, we're going to give you an incentive. We're going to change your contract around. And he rewarded them because Chuck Clark had a solid year this year. So now with Patrick Queen, I wonder, I haven't heard anything. So this is just me. But I wonder if Patrick Queen, since he obviously is paying attention to everything. He obviously knows everything that's going on. First off, they traded for O'Quan Smith. Then, yeah, they drafted Trenton Simpson. They declined his fifth year option for next year. So it's like, huh, could he possibly, maybe, and we know Patrick Queen, he did an Instagram scrub, and we know them Instagram scrubs, they are not by coincidence. Could Patrick Queen have requested a trade? Could he have been like, you know what, let me just go to a different situation. Again, this is just me thinking out loud. We have not heard anything from anybody anywhere. But could Patrick Queen have requested a trade? That's just something to think about. And could this be the Ravens' way of being like, all right, you requested a trade? And maybe they tried. I don't know. Maybe they tried on what was successful. I don't know. But this could be the Ravens' way of giving Patrick Queen that public reassurance. Like, hey, he's one of us. Patrick Queen is a Raven. We wanted to be a Raven for a long time. We want to sign into a contract extension. Could be. Maybe. Maybe not. But if they are really trying to keep Patrick Queen, even just this year alone, I would much rather him be with the team than be off it. Because again, the more talent you have, the better. The more playmakers you have, the better. The more guys you have that can get after it, the better. And that will really just resemble an all-in approach. Because again, it reminds me of the offensive side of the ball. And obviously, the roster's not set in stone yet. But for the Ravens to be at this point in the off-season and against, things can still change. But on the offensive side of the ball, you signed Odea Beckham, Jr. You signed Nelson Aguilore. You drafted Zabe Flowers or Shaw Bateman's coming back. There was a lot of question. Before any of that had even happened, there was a lot of concern and people wondering, man, could Devon Duvenay be traded? Especially with him getting a raise based off of him making a pro bowl and whatnot. Could he be traded? Especially with a significant cap hit for a player that really was inconsistent. I can't say he wasn't significant, but he was inconsistent as far as his playing time and his usage with the Baltimore Ravens. And now, especially with the Ravens, that was before the draft. That was before free agency. But a lot of people questioned, could Devon Duvenay be traded? But now after the draft, that's a free agency. And us being at this point, Devon Duvenay is still here. So, and I like it. I like it. Because, again, when you have more quality depth at different positions, your worst player at that position is a lot better than they were before. It's a lot better than your worst player was before. So, it's like having quality is so important. Having quality depth. And the Ravens have that in a lot of places right now. So, again, we'll see what it really is with Patrick Queen. I'm sure we'll see soon enough. That's a question that may be answered this year, or we may have to wait until next offseason. But we'll see what the cost really means in the future. Anyway, like Patrick Queen, hopefully won't be at least for this season. We out. I love y'all.