Ravens release OT Eugene Monroe after failing to make a trade

Eugene Monroe was a player the Giants were willing to trade for and now that he will cost them only salary, it will make him that more appealing.

There have been rumors all offseason that Eugene Monroe could be on his way out of Baltimore.

The Giants now have the much-maligned Marshall Newhouse atop the depth chart at right tackle. Over the past two seasons, Monroe played in just 17 of 32 regular season games due to injuries and is coming off shoulder surgery in December.

A split seemed inevitable as the Ravens held Monroe out of this week’s mandatory minicamp while they sought a potential trade partner.

One of those teams is the New York Giants, who reportedly still have interest in signing him as a street free agent.

After drafting Notre Dame offensive tackle Ronnie Stanley with the sixth overall pick in April, the Ravens had no need for an over-priced offensive lineman that missed more than half of the season with injuries. He started 62 games primarily at left tackle before the team traded him to the Ravens in 2013 for a fourth- and fifth-round pick in the 2014 draft.

On Tuesday, coach John Harbaugh explained Monroe’s absence as a “front-office-type situation”. He tweeted Friday that the Ravens were distancing themselves from him and his cause.

Team officials love to use the mantra “Play Like A Raven”, and Monroe never could fit the mold.

Monroe regularly talks about the benefits of weed on Twitter, gives quotes about his mission, and wrote an essay in May for The Players’ Tribune arguing that the National Football League should remove weed from its list of banned substances.