Ravens ink Rice to five-year, $40 mil deal

I'll go with the cliched "40 million reasons to smile" for this one (Photo courtesy of Baltimoreravens.com)

A couple of months after the Orioles locked up their young, face-of-the-franchise player in Adam Jones, the Baltimore Ravens follow suit in typical, down to the wire fashion.

Ravens, Rice without deal hours before deadline; Reed acting childish

Super Bowl-winning teams are always a perfect storm of elements: the roster is loaded with talent and depth, key players stay healthy, play peaks late in the season, and off-field distractions are minimal, if present at all.

With the deadline to sign franchise-tagged players rapidly approaching--it's todayat 4:00 p.m.--and a first-ballot hall of fame safety becoming increasingly disillusioned and selfish, the Ravens are stumbling into training camp unsure about their ability to satisfy half of the aforementioned tenets.

Graphic courtesy of ESPN Internet Ventures and Getty Images

In an last Saturday today with baltimoreravens.com's Ryan Mink, Jason LaCanfora of CBS Sports says, "I don't have high expectations of seeing this deal get done. He sees himself as a top-5 running back in the league; I think nine [million dollars] a year is probably the magic number here and I'm not sure that Ray's going to get that right now. And I don't know that he's going to back down."