[molson]

The Ravens would have had to match within 5 days, and they would have gotten the offering teams next 2 first round picks. Which both made him less desirable to other teams, and created a lot of speculation back then that Ravens would be OK to take the picks and move on at a certain number.

Edit: Best I can tell from reading the stuff back then, it was a calculated risk. The Ravens could narrow down which teams had the space to begin with, and could project what an offer might be. They thought the risk was low that somebody would go over what they were willing to pay, there just wasn't many teams in play. The consensus of the time was that around $200 million guaranteed would have gotten it done, and nobody was willing to offer that AND give up 2 first round picks. But I wonder if any teams who could have, would take that now. His perceived value is much higher now than it was then. There's not a lot of professional athletes I can think of that played better immediately AFTER getting a massive amount of money.