The Facts: Following up on the ongoing story. ... With both sides in the Flacco contract talks engaged in plenty of negotiation through the media, the sooner the two sides get together, the better off everyone will be. But while Peter King of SI.com (and Baltimore Sun staffer Aaron Wilson) reported Monday that talks will commence this week, agent Joe Linta tells PFT that nothing is scheduled yet. Linta says that negotiations likely will get started next week, in conjunction with the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
Diehards Line:As PFT's Mike Florio notes, this means that the talks will start after the two-week window for applying the franchise tag opens, on February 18. With the Ravens now sending signals that they may not use the exclusive franchise tender on Flacco, Florio wouldn’t be surprised if they slap the non-exclusive tag early in the process. That would set Flacco’s one-year guaranteed pay at $14.6 million, far less than the exclusive tender of more than $20 million. Using the non-exclusive franchise tag would expose Flacco to an offer from another team. And while a team like the Browns could choose to extend a frontloaded proposal to Flacco in order to steal him away from Baltimore, Flacco would have to want to leave the Ravens before he would sign an offer with another team. Florio added: "Ultimately, the Ravens could decide to bank on Flacco not wanting to leave. ..." Stay tuned. More undoubtedly to come.