Ravens Sign DE Elvis Dumervil

This afternoon, the Baltimore Ravens and free agent pass rusher Elvis Dumervil have agreed to terms on a contract.

The deal is reported to be worth a maximum of $35 million over 5 years with $12 million guaranteed and $8.5 million in the first year of the deal. He will get a signing bonus of $7.5 million.  The cap hit for the first year of the contract is $2.5 million.  This comes from a base salary of $1 million and $1.5 million from the signing bonus which is spread out equally throughout all five years of the contract.

The contract isn’t official yet as Dumervil still has to take a physical with the Ravens but he is expected to pass that as there are no injury concerns with him.  This physical will happen in Tuesday.

WIth this signing, the Ravens will have $5.687 million in cap room left to sign other free agents.

The Baltimore Ravens have signed free agent DE Elvis Dumervil.

Dumervil, age 29, is a 5 foot 11 inch, 260 pound defensive end who last played with the Denver Broncos and was a 4th round draft pick out of Louisville by the Broncos in the 2006 NFL Draft.

His separation from the Broncos comes about a week after he had agreed to take a pay cut to stay with the them.  However, the paperwork for this move was filed too late (part of his contract became guaranteed at a deadline).  The missing of the deadline led the Broncos to cut Dumervil saving about $8 million in cap room.  The Broncos were still interested in re-signing Dumervil after this incident but he chose the Ravens over them.

This incident has become known as “Faxgate” as the new contract was faxed by Dumervil’s agent to the Broncos and the fax took to long to get to the Broncos.  Each side received quite a bit of criticism as fax machines aren’t used much anymore.

On to Dumervil with the Ravens, they will move him to OLB.  This move won’t be hard as Dumervil has played this position before with the Broncos but the switched to a 4-3 defense a few years ago where he plays DE.  Now that he is back in a 3-4 defense, he will play OLB again.

In 2009, Dumervil had his best season and this came when he was in a 3-4 defense.  He recorded a career highs in sacks with 17.

Over his career, Dumervil has had 63.5 sacks in 6 seasons and has only missed 5 games in his career.  This comes out to an average of 10.5 sacks per season.

One connection that Dumervil had to the Ravens, was that his linebackers coach back in 2009, Don Martindale, when he had his career year, is now the Ravens linebackers coach.  This wasn’t the main reason why Dumervil will sign with the Ravens but it certainly helped the Ravens cause.

This signing adds to the Ravens additions to their front seven.  They have already signed two defensive ends in Chris Canty and Marcus Spears. The Ravens clearly made this a priority for this offseason after their defense wasn’t the same last year compared to most years.

Across from Dumervil at the other OLB position will be Terrell Suggs who is one year removed from being the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. This combination should give the Ravens ones of the best pass rushing combinations in the NFL, assuming Suggs is over his injuries from last year.

When you look at this signing, it is a typical Ozzie Newsome move.  On the first day of free agency, the Ravens lost OLB Paul Kruger to the Cleveland Browns for just over $8 million per year.  Now, the Ravens have a better player in Dumervil and they paid him $1 million less per year than Kruger was paid.

Up next for the Ravens in free agency is probably signing a veteran ILB or S for cheap.  They were rumored to be bringing in 30-year old S Michael Huff for a visit but there has been no more news about Huff since then.