![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2243443312-e1775157401980.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Former New York Jets offensive lineman John Simpson. <\/p>\n
The Baltimore Ravens<\/a> left little to the imagination with their intentions for free-agent offensive guard John Simpson<\/a> when they signed him to a 3-year, $30 million free-agent contract on March 9.<\/p>\n Simpson, 6-foot-4 and 330 pounds, is being counted on to not only start but be a high-impact player for the Ravens, who watched their offensive line struggle mightily to protect 2-time NFL MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n The only problem? Simpson might not be up to the task and could represent a massive overpay by the Ravens.\u00a0Pro Football Focus called Simpson<\/a> one of its \u201cLeast Favorite\u201d free-agent signings in the 2026 cycle.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Simpson\u2019s 2nd stint with the Ravens after playing for them in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cSimpson returns to Baltimore after two seasons with the New York Jets<\/a>, but this time, he will not have center\u00a0Tyler Linderbaum<\/a> by his side,\u201d PFF\u2019s Zolton Buday wrote. \u201cSimpson has earned a PFF overall grade above 60.0 just once in his career: in 2024, when he ranked 11th among guards with a 77.3 mark. Unless Simpson can get back to that level in 2026, this seems like an overpay by the Ravens.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2025, Simpson was pretty bad, actually, and his 56.9 overall grade from PFF<\/a> ranked him 54th out of 81 eligible players at his position.<\/p>\n Ravens Overpaid for John Simpson By How Much?<\/p>\n There was a massive difference between the projected market value for Simpson and the money he actually ended up with.<\/p>\n Spotrac projected Simpson in line for a 1-year, $6.3 million contract \u2014 the Ravens went way, way past that for some reason.<\/p>\n The Jets actually received some rare (very rare) praise for letting Simpson go in free agency.<\/p>\n \u201cSimpson\u2019s departure leaves New York with an immediate hole at left guard, which they will need to address in free agency, the draft, or both,\u201d Jets X-Factor\u2019s Connor Long wrote<\/a>. \u201d \u2026 While retaining Simpson would have made sense, the Jets ultimately made the right decision to let him walk. Simpson thrived in his first season as a Jet, earning a stellar 77.3 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, which was the fourth highest among all left guards. However, in 2025, he took a significant step back.\u201d<\/p>\n Ravens Saw Success With John Simpson in Lineup<\/p>\n Simpson did nothing short of bringing his career back to life in his 2 seasons in Baltimore.<\/p>\n Drafted in the 4th round (No. 109 overall) of the 2020 NFL draft after winning 2 College Football Playoff national championships and earning All-American honors at Clemson, Simpson played his 1st 3 seasons with the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> before he was released in December 2022.<\/p>\n Signed to the Ravens\u2019 practice squad just 10 days later, Simpson didn\u2019t play a regular-season game for the Ravens in 2022 but signed a reserve\/futures contract in January 2023 and started all 17 games for Baltimore that season as they went 13-4, earned the No. 1 seed in the AFC and lost to the Kansas City Chiefs<\/a> in the AFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n That 1 season has led to a financial windfall for Simpson. Through his first 4 seasons in the NFL with the Raiders and Ravens, Simpson had roughly $3 million in career earnings.<\/p>\n Over his next 5 seasons with the Jets and Ravens, he will have made approximately $50 million.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTony Adame<\/a> covers the NFL for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington Commanders, Dallas Cowboys, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Denver Broncos. A veteran sports writer and editor since 2004, his work has been featured at Stadium Talk, Yardbarker, NW Florida Daily News and Pensacola News Journal. More about Tony Adame<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Ravens\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Former New York Jets offensive lineman John Simpson. The Baltimore Ravens left little to the imagination with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,7,6,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-849961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-ravens","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-baltimoreravens","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-ravens"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116337029527618169","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}