How much longer will the Ravens keep Joe Flacco?

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Regardless of whether quarterback Lamar Jackson becomes the steal of round one by developing into the kind of player at the NFL level that he was at Louisville, the willingness of the Ravens to trade up to take a rookie quarterback means that they are getting toward the end of the line with the quarterback they traded down then up to get in 2007.

So how much longer will Joe Flacco be in Baltimore?

Yes, he’s the quarterback for now (just like Alex Smith was a year ago in Kansas City), but Flacco’s cap hit will be $26.5 million in 2019, and the cap charge for trading or cutting him will be $16 million. His Bortlesesque base salary of $18.5 million come 2019 makes the contract more tradeable than the cap number would suggest. But he’ll be 34 in January, and there may not be an obvious trade partner after the season, pending injuries or other developments in 2018.

If a trade partner can’t be found, the Ravens could split the cap charge between 2019 and 2020, dropping it to $8 million in each of those two years.

Come 2020, the cap charge moves north of $28 million and the dead money drops to $8 million. Which means that, regardless of who the next starter will be, Flacco likely has two years left at the very most — barring a sudden rediscovery of individual and team performance that turns the clock back to 2012.

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