He Has The Power To Kill A Yak From 200 Yards Away

Possibly the greatest song EVER.

Heady times to be a local sports fan. The Orioles are still playing well (the way the Texas Rangers are playing winning one game is a good thing), the Washington Capitals are going into the playoffs as the #1 seed in the East (here's hoping for a better turnout this year), and the Wizards...well...John Wall does one hell of a Dougie.

But in the midst of all of this is the 900 lb gorilla that is the NFL (and the 1200 lb gorilla's mother-in-law that is the neverending labor strife). And in the midst of all of this Friend O' The Blog Matt Vensel posits that the Ravens should go after Santonio Holmes if he does in fact become a free agent once the labor morass is resolved. While the thought of Holmes making big plays for the purple and black sounds nice (making them against his former team in Pittsburgh sounds doubly sweet), I am going to have to respectfully disagree for a couple big reasons.

Money

The Ravens figure to have some cap room once there is a cap again, so they could sign Holmes. But if they do, what do they do about signing Haloti Ngata, Ray Rice, Joe Flacco, and possibly Ed Reed (if he decides to stick around for a few more years)? One of the reasons this team is able to be good more often than it is bad is because the team makes tough but sound choices when it comes on who to keep versus who to let go (look at the post Ravens careers of Duane Starks, Edgerton Hartwell, Adailus Thomas, Gary Baxter, et cetera). Is Holmes a good player? Undoubtedly. Is he better at his position than Ngata/Rice/Flacco/Reed are at theirs? I don't think so. So it is not worth it financially to sign him if the Ravens lose one of the other guys.

Character

John Harbaugh has been working very hard to alter the mindset of this team. He has not eliminated the swagger, but he has eliminated a lot of the trash talking and the malcontents that don't play into the team concept. Holmes is not a team player because of the way he conducts himself off the field. Any player that gets a separate tag for "legal trouble" on Wikipedia is not possessing the kind of character that Harbaugh is fostering on this team. And since he already has a 4 game suspension under his belt, the next one will be 8 games. Another big red mark.

Add it all up and Holmes is not worth the money OR the risk. Besides, I am not sure that Cam Cameron would know what to do with him on the team anyway.