Ravens Exercise Fifth-Year Option on One of Their 2022 First Round Selections
On April 30th, 2025, the Baltimore Ravens announced they were exercising the fifth-year option for All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton, keeping Hamilton in Baltimore through the 2026 season. While picking up the option for Hamilton, the Ravens had to decline the option for center Tyler Linderbaum. The Ravens understand the importance of retaining both players, but economics and financial specifics got in the way of Linderbaum’s option being picked up as the two-time Pro Bowler, and all centers are grouped with all offensive linemen when it comes to pricing the fifth-year option. In a press release announcing the acceptance of Hamilton’s option and declining of Linderbaum’s, Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said they have a “goal of working towards a multi-year contract extension” for Hamilton and states their “intention for Linderbaum to remain a Baltimore Raven.”
Hamilton’s option is worth $18.6 million, which is the eighth highest for safeties in terms of salary cap hit behind Detroit’s Kerby Joseph, who just signed a lucrative deal averaging $21.5 million per year. If Linderbaum were to have his option picked up, he would be guaranteed $23.4 million, which is much more expensive than the leading paid center, Kansas City’s Creed Humphrey, with $18 million per year. Instead, the Ravens will use the contracts of Humphrey and Philadelphia’s Cam Jurgens, who is projected to make $17 million per year, to create the framework of Linderbaum’s contract, hoping that he can be the highest-paid active center, but not by more than five million dollars. “I’ll let my agent handle that,” Linderbaum said earlier this month when asked about the options. “I’m just focusing on becoming as good of a football player I can be for this team. I’m coming in here every day and putting my best foot forward. Let all the other things take care of themselves.”
Hamilton was in the same position when asked about exercising his option. “If it happens this offseason, cool, but I’m not in a rush to get it done necessarily.” Hamilton started in all 17 games in 2024, recording a career-high 107 tackles, but was not able to float around the field like he was in 2022 and 2023 due to secondary struggles in the first half of the year. With the addition of Malaki Starks in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft, Hamilton has the perfect opportunity to be the 2025 Defensive Player of the Year and get the Baltimore Ravens defense back on top. A problem for a later day is that if Hamilton earns those achievements and more over the next two seasons, his price will undoubtedly go up, causing more financial problems for the Ravens front office, but luckily the fifth-year option delays the inevitable groundbreaking contract until the 2027 offseason.
