9:26am: The Ravens have now made the Morgan signing official, confirming that they’ve moved Smith to the injured reserve list to accommodate the move (Twitter link).
8:10am: After working out a few receivers this week, the Ravens are signing former Saints wideout Joe Morgan, according to Ed Werder of ESPN.com (via Twitter). The Ravens has yet to officially announce the move, but when they do, they’ll likely place Steve Smith – out for the year with a torn Achilles – on injured reserve to clear room on the roster.
With Smith sidelined for the rest of the year and first-round rookie Breshad Perriman still not close to returning, the Ravens needed to add some depth to their receiving corps, and brought in three wideouts for auditions. The biggest name of those three – Hakeem Nicks – was apparently the only player not to get a contract offer from Baltimore, with Morgan headed to the 53-man roster and Chuck Jacobs signing to the practice squad.
Morgan, 27, has spent his entire NFL career with the Saints, appearing in a total of 21 games over five seasons. While he has never been a major part of New Orleans’ offense, the Walsh product flashed some big-play ability in 2012, racking up an impressive 379 yards and three touchdowns on just 10 receptions.
Joe Flacco throws a nice deep ball, and could try to take advantage of Morgan’s speed following the Ravens’ Week 9 bye, but the ex-Saint figures to take a back seat to the in-house options in Baltimore — Kamar Aiken, Marlon Brown, Chris Givens, and Jeremy Ross are among the players who could see an uptick in targets with Smith sidelined.
Should of signed Nicks
This is certainly not good news for Nicks. If he’s getting passed over in favor of players like Morgan, then he may just be done. His lackluster performance in Indy could have been explained away as too many mouths to feed, but having been cut by Tennessee and turned down by several other clubs this year, it looks like Nicks is nearing the end of the road.
Yes, they should HAVE!