The 2021 offseason has officially arrived even though the new league year doesn’t formally begin until March 17. Due to the loss of revenue that the pandemic caused, the available cap space for teams leaguewide has been significantly reduced.
Many contending teams will have some difficult decisions to make over the next month and a half, the Ravens included. That means that the unrestricted free agent market will be saturated with an abundance of mid-tier veteran players that are relatively inexpensive would typically be retained or re-signed by their current teams.
There will also be a large contingent of the upper echelon of free agents that will either have to settle for a lower price than they were anticipating this spring, sign shorter deals so that they can hit the market again when there’s more cap space and they’re still in their prime, or agree to backloaded contracts.