With today’s news that the Ravens have officially used the Franchise Tag on Defensive Tackle Haloti Ngata, there will be continued questions of why the Ravens’ Front Office has simply not just re-signed Ngata to the contract extension that nearly everyone believes he is deserving of.

The simple answer is that the same rules that have limited the team’s ability to re-sign Ngata last year still exist and make it pretty much impossible to sign the two-time Pro Bowler to the type of contract that he can demand. 

As was covered in this column last year, the 30% rule of the Uncapped Year makes it very difficult to reach an agreement with Ngata.  And, as has been explained before, the Uncapped Year rules are still technically in place because the 2010 league year does not expire until March 3rd.  Because of this, no team has signed a pending Free Agent to a sizeable deal this offseason, which is why there is likely to be a record number of players facing the Franchise Tag this month.

So, while reaching an agreement on a long term contract with DT Haloti Ngata is one of the Ravens’ stated goals for the offseason, it’s highly unlikely anything will get done on a new contract until the new CBA is agreed to (whenever that may be).

More to come later………