Aaron Rodgers and the Packers could be close to a monster contract extension. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers are closing in on a long-term extension that would make the 2005 first-round pick the highest-paid player in NFL history, ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter reported Thursday. Schefter reported that the deal, which has a good chance of being completed this offseason, could average $25 million per season.

That number would surpass Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco, who signed a six-year, $120.6 million contract earlier this offseason that made him the highest-paid NFL player.

Midway through his first season as the Packers’ starting quarterback in 2008, Rodgers signed a contract extension that paid him $65 million over seven seasons. Rodgers has two years and $19.75 million remaining on that deal, including base salaries of $9.25 million in 2013 and $10.5 million in 2014.

Since becoming the Packers’ full-time starter in 2008 after three seasons backing up Brett Favre, the 29-year-old Rodgers has blossomed into one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks. Under Rodgers’ lead, the Packers won Super Bowl XLV in 2011.

Last season, Rodgers placed in the top five of NFL quarterbacks in almost every important statistical category. He completed 67.2 percent of his passes for 4,295 yards while putting up a 108.0 quarterback rating. He threw 39 touchdowns to only eight interceptions.

Anquan Boldin will test the free-agent market if the Ravens release him. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Anquan Boldin has rejected the team’s request to cut his salary and is preparing to test the free-agent market, USA Today’s Jarrett Bell reported on Saturday.

Boldin had previously said that he would rather retire than play for another team if the Ravens released him, but now it appears that he has changed his tune. Boldin has one year remaining on a four-year, $25 million contract. He is due to make $6 million next season. His cap number is about $7.5 million, a number the Ravens want to cut to be able to sign free agent linebacker Dannell Ellerbe and look at other moves.

At 32, Boldin could have a few suitors in free agency. He played a key role in the Ravens’ road to a Super Bowl XLVII victory over the San Francisco 49ers. In four games this postseason, Boldin had 22 receptions for 380 yards and four touchdowns. He caught two touchdown passes in the Ravens’ AFC Championship win over the New England Patriots in Foxboro and added a touchdown in the Ravens’ 34-31 Super Bowl win.

When the Ravens locked up quarterback Joe Flacco to a record-setting contract this week, he said he hoped that the Ravens would be able to retain Boldin.

“He’s a big part of this offense,” Flacco said. “He’s a big reason why I’m standing here talking to you guys.”

Joe Flacco’s new contract reportedly includes $52 million in guaranteed money. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Joe Flacco’s historic new six-year, $120.6-million contract with the Baltimore Ravens includes a whopping $52 million in guaranteed money, USA Today’s Jim Corbett reported Sunday.

Flacco and the Ravens agreed to the contract on Friday and he will sign it Monday, according to the report. The deal makes the Super Bowl MVP Flacco the highest-paid player in NFL history and could keep him in a Ravens uniform through age 34.

Corbett reported that the contract will count only $6.8 million against the Ravens’ salary cap this season. The deal also aids the Ravens because they now are free to use their franchise tag, if they choose, on one of three players — linebacker Dannell Ellerbe, defensive end Paul Kruger or safety Ed Reed.

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh told the NFL Network’s Albert Breer that he was happy about the deal.

“Just very happy for Joe, his family & also for Ravens fans,” Harbaugh told Breer via text message. “He['s] always been our QB. So to me, this is very fitting.”

Flacco had a stellar postseason while leading the Ravens to a 34-31 Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers. In the playoffs, he threw 11 touchdowns to no interceptions and completed nearly 58 percent of his passes.

Joe Flacco’s agent and the Ravens will meet this week to talk about a new, long-term contract. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

The Baltimore Ravens will meet with the agent for star quarterback Joe Flacco this week in Indianapolis, ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter reported Monday. The talks would be the first for both sides since August.

If they cannot come to a long-term deal with Flacco, the Super Bowl champion Ravens are expected to use their franchise tag to lock up Flacco for next season. That would cost them approximately $20 million.

The Ravens have until March 4 to decide whether to use their franchise tag on Flacco. After the Super Bowl, Flacco said he was “optimistic” about getting a long-term deal done.

“I’m pretty optimistic, but who knows?” Flacco said of agreeing on a deal, according to The Baltimore Sun. “There’s all kinds of crazy things that can happen with these contracts that we’ve all seen before, but this is a great organization. I love being [in Baltimore], great city, so I don’t really anticipate any problems.”

Flacco is reportedly looking for a long-term contract that would pay him more than Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning and would rival Drew Brees’ contract that pays him $20 million per season with the New Orleans Saints.

Flacco had a stellar postseason while leading the Ravens to a 34-31 Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers earlier this month. In the playoffs, he threw 11 touchdowns to no interceptions and completed nearly 58 percent of his passes.

Joe Flacco, an impending free agent, said he’s “optimistic” about returning to the Ravens next season. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

A day after being named Super Bowl XLVII’s MVP, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco said Monday that he is “optimistic” about returning to the team next season as he prepares to enter free agency.

Flacco’s rookie contract expired after the season, making him a free agent. If the Ravens and Flacco cannot agree on a long-term, the team would almost certainly think about using its franchise tag on him.

“I’m pretty optimistic, but who knows?” Flacco said of agreeing on a deal, according to The Baltimore Sun. “There’s all kinds of crazy things that can happen with these contracts that we’ve all seen before, but this is a great organization. I love being [in Baltimore], great city, so I don’t really anticipate any problems.”

Flacco’s agent, Joe Linta, told the Sun that it’s “hard to argue Joe’s not the best guy out there now.” Flacco dominated in the postseason en route to leading the Ravens to a 34-31 Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers. In the playoffs, he threw 11 touchdowns and no interceptions while completing about 58 percent of his passes.

Flacco is reportedly looking for a long-term contract that would pay him more than Peyton Manning that would rival Drew Brees’ contract that pays him $20 million per season. The Ravens could theoretically designate him their non-exclusive franchise player at a projected cost of $14.6 million or use their exclusive franchise tag figure for nearly $20 million next season, according to the Sun.

The 28-year-old Flacco had an 87.7 quarterback rating this season, throwing 22 touchdowns to only 10 interceptions. Though he had a stellar postseason, none of his regular-season stats — touchdowns, yards, quarterback rating or completion percentage — put him among the top 10 NFL quarterbacks in those respective categories.

Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco reportedly wants a contract worth more than Peyton Manning’s and rivaling that of Drew Brees. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Joe Flacco and his representatives believe that he is playing better than Peyton Manning and deserves a bigger contract extension from the Baltimore Ravens, the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported on Monday.

According to Pro Football Talk, Manning makes $19.2 million per season. That means that, as ESPN.com’s John Clayton reported Monday, Flacco will seek a contract that rivals Drew Brees’ at $20 million per season.

As he gears up for Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday, Flacco faces impending unrestricted free agency in the offseason. The Ravens would almost certainly use their franchise tag on him. The tentative franchise-tag salary for quarterbacks is $14.642 million next season.

Statistically, Flacco didn’t quite have the best season of his career in 2012. But he did lead the Ravens to a 10-6 record and three straight playoff wins to earn his team a Super Bowl appearance.

The 28-year-old Flacco had an 87.7 quarterback rating this season, throwing 22 touchdowns to only 10 interceptions. He has had a superb postseason, throwing eight touchdowns and zero interceptions in the three games. However, none of his regular-season stats — touchdowns, yards, quarterback rating or completion percentage — put him among the top 10 NFL quarterbacks in those respective categories.

The internal view from Joe Flacco’s camp: He’s playing better than Peyton Manning, who makes $18M per year. Target is higher than that

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 29, 2013

Even though Ray Rice carried the ball only 10 times in the opening week, he says he is comfortable with his role on the team. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

The Baltimore Ravens are taking a departure from years past where they won with a bruising running game and playing suffocating defense.

Now that Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco is engineering a no-huddle offense, running back Ray Rice says he is fine with his new role.

“Coming into this year, it was Joe Flacco’s offense,” Rice told the Baltimore Sun. ”It starts with him, and we just follow his lead.”

Flacco had 29 passing attempts for 299 yards and two touchdowns in the Monday night victory against Cincinnati and Rice carried the ball 10 times for 68 yards and caught three passes for 25 yards.

“My role is never changing. My role is actually making other guys better,” Rice said. ”When teams come in and they forget about me, I have the capability of lighting them up. What we’re doing right now, other guys — not that they’ve never stepped up — they’re just making the plays that they’ve always been capable of making. When you have me in the game, they have to respect it.”

Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco will be looking for a long-term deal with the team after the season. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)

Joe Flacco is heading in the final year of his rookie contract, one that will pay him $6.7 million this season.

With Flacco’s 299 yard, two touchdown performance in a Monday night rout of the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens head coach had a few choice words on what Ravens management should do with Flacco.

“Pay the man,” Harbaugh said.

But Flacco’s agent Joe Linta said he hasn’t spoken with management about a new deal for Flacco.

“The only way you get categorized as an elite quarterback is by the money and the contract you’re offered,” Linta told Comcast SportsNet Baltimore. For someone to say you’re great is one thing. To pay you like you’re great is another. At this point, it’s up to them. … (Flacco’s) silence is my leverage.”

Flacco said he is just trying to concentrate on the season.

 “I don’t concern myself with that stuff,” he said. “I feel like I always go out there … and we play pretty damn good every week. The stats might not always say 299 yards or 300 yards or 450 yards, whatever it is, but the bottom line is I go out there and I play hard. I play tough and we win a lot of football games around here. So, all that stuff will take care of itself.”

Despite an unsettled contract situation with the team, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco reported for voluntary workouts Monday, according to the team’s official twitter account.

#Ravens QB Joe Flacco is at the team's voluntary strength and conditioning program

—
Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) April 16, 2012

Back in March at the NFL Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti told the Baltimore Sun that he envisions a new contract for Flacco before his contract expires after the 2012 season.  No deal has been settled on yet.

Ray Rice, who is also in the midst of negotiating a long-term contract, chose not to report for voluntary workouts Monday despite having the franchise tag applied to him.  Among the first players to report for the workouts was cornerback Lardarius Webb, who recently signed a six-year, $50 million deal with the team.

In a recent radio interview, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco stated that he thinks he is the best quarterback in the NFL, according to ESPN.com.

“I assume everybody thinks they’re a top-five quarterback,” Flacco said to WNST 1570 in Baltimore when asked where he ranks among NFL quarterbacks. “I mean, I think I’m the best. I don’t think I’m top five, I think I’m the best. I don’t think I’d be very successful at my job if I didn’t feel that way. I mean, c’mon? That’s not really too tough of a question.”

Flacco is currently in the final year on his rookie contract since being drafted in the first round in 2008.  His agent Joe Linta has expressed that he and Flacco believe the quarterback should be treated like the league’s best and he wants a deal done soon.  However, Flacco did say, “It’s not about the money. It’s about what you feel you deserve.  At the end of the day, they’ll take care of it and I’ll be waiting.”

Flacco’s overall numbers have been considered underwhelming by many.  However, he did lead the Ravens to the playoffs with 12-4 record last season, with his squad ultimately losing to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game.  In 2011, Flacco compiled an 80.9 qb rating, throwing for 3,610 yards and 20 touchdowns.

The Baltimore Ravens have hired former Indianapolis Colts head coach Jim Caldwell as the new quarterback coach, according to the Ravens’ official twitter account.

#Ravens have officially hired Jim Caldwell as their Quarterbacks Coach

—
Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) January 30, 2012

Caldwell will work with quarterback Joe Flacco alongside offensive coordinator Cam Cameron.   Before being hired by the Ravens, Caldwell was interviewed by the Pittsburgh Steelers for the offensive coordinator job.

Caldwell, 57, has been a quarterbacks coach for 15 seasons, including seven (2002-08) with Manning and the Colts.   Coaching the team for three years after taking over for Tony Dungy in 2009, Caldwell’s tenure with the Colts ended in 26-22 record including one AFC title and two division titles.

Ravens Quarterback Joe Flacco responded to Ed Reed’s comments to SiriusXM NFL Radio on Flacco’s “rattled” play in the win against the Houston Texans last Sunday, according to USA Today.

“I said, ‘Yo, bro, what are you doing to me? I mean I already take enough, and now you gotta come out and say this.’ You never know what context it was said in — you know, live — and you never know what he was really thinking in his mind about what he meant by it.” Flacco told NFL Network’s NFL Total Access on Wednesday .

“ [Reed] kinda laughed about it and wanted to give me a hug and all that,” Flacco said, asserting that there was no rift in the locker room. “Like I said, you never know what he was actually thinking and stuff like that when he answered the question. It didn’t sound good, it’s not a big deal.”

In the Ravens’ opening playoff game last weekend, Flacco completed 14 of 27 passes for 176 yards and was sacked five times in a 20-13 win over the Texans.

This Sunday, the Ravens will travel to Foxboro to face Tom Brady and the No. 1 seeded New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game.  Brady is 4-1 against Baltimore; however, his 71.4 quarterback rating in those contests is his lowest against any team.

Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed said that he believed that quarterback Joe Flacco was “rattled” in the team’s divisional matchup with the Houston Texans, according to ESPN.com.

“I think Joe was kind of rattled a little bit by (Houston’s) defense,” Reed said, according to the report. “(The Texans) had a lot of guys in the box on him. And, I mean, they were getting to him. I think a couple times he needed to get rid of the ball. I don’t know how much of the play-calling … but it just didn’t look like he had a hold on the offense. … It was just kind of like (Baltimore’s coaches) was telling him to do, throw the ball or get it here, you know, get it to certain guys. And he can’t play like that.”

Flacco was sacked several times, and Reed also said that some of the blame falls on the offensive line.

“[T]he offensive line gotta block better,” Reed said, according to the report. “You know, they gotta communicate better, gotta pick up blocks (and) Joe’s gotta get the ball out of his hand.”

The Ravens will play the New England Patriots Sunday with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.

When you stack him up against the great quarterbacks still standing in these NFL playoffs — Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady and the like — the Baltimore Ravens’ Joe Flacco doesn’t exactly stack up favorably. But Flacco is tired of listening to the criticism.

“I don’t care,” Flacco told the Baltimore Sun after today’s practice. “We’ve won a lot of games around here. This is the second year in a row we’ve won 12 games. I could care less. At the end of the day, do you see the criticism sometimes and say, ‘What the hell are they talking about?’ Yeah. But who cares?”

Reminded today that mostly big-name quarterbacks — the three named above, plus Ben Roethlisberger and two brothers named Manning — have won all of the last eight Super Bowls, Flacco told reporters that he resented the praise that’s heaped upon the league’s championship-winning QBs.

“If you look at the teams that won, yeah, you can look at the quarterbacks, but that’s just because you guys, ESPN, everybody wants to pump them up as being the best quarterback that year,” he said. “But I’m sure if we win, I’ll have nothing to do with why we won, according to you guys.”

Flacco has started every single game for the Ravens in his four-year NFL career. He’s thrown for 13,816 yards and 80 touchdowns in 64 career games.

The Ravens take on the Houston Texans in the wild-card round of the playoffs at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Baltimore Ravens star quarterback Joe Flacco says he is baffled by how much more coverage the media gives Tim Tebow over the Baltimore Ravens, according to NFL.com.

“I mean, look at Tim Tebow,” Flacco told Baltimore Sports 1570 AM. “I like Tim, but you have a tendency to want to — I don’t want to see Tim do bad — but look what happens after he wins a football game. If you watched SportsCenter today, it was Tim Tebow then something else, Tim Tebow then something else, and Tim Tebow then something else. When we beat the Steelers, were we on TV? No. I couldn’t even find a Baltimore Ravens highlight. I think that’s kinda the way it is around Baltimore. We don’t always get our respect but you gotta deal with it and go out there every week and just win football games.”

Flacco and Tebow come from polar opposite backgrounds. The 26-year-old Ravens quarterback was drafted out of the University of Delaware, an NCAA Football Championship Subdivision, and has kept a relatively low profile as the starter for Baltimore for the past four seasons. Tebow, on the other hand, played for one of the top football programs in the country, Florida, and won two National Championships and the Heisman Trophy award during his college football tenure.

The Broncos, 8-5, are currently on a six game winning streak with Tebow as their starter. The Ravens, 10-3, have won their previous four games in a row.