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Ravens safety Ed Reed is due to become a free agent. Some believe that the Patriots could try to sign him.

Teammate Bernard Pollard thinks it shouldn’t come to that, and that the Ravens and Reed should continue their long-term relationship.

“They’re gonna do everything they can,” Pollard told SportsRadio 610 in Houston. “Obviously, I don’t know what the front office is going to do. But you’ve got to believe and trust that they’re going to try to do everything they can to lock a future Hall of Famer up. He has been great to this organization, to this city. . . . Coach Harbaugh is pulling for them to lock him up, and I know Ed wants to be here. We all want Ed here. . . . He has to come back.”

It’s easy to say that, especially in the wake of the Ravens capturing the true essence of “team” en route to a Super Bowl win. But the challenge for the Ravens and the players who are due to become free agents or who have contracts that carry large cap numbers will be to determine whether a balance can be struck between paying the players fair value and managing a salary cap that isn’t expected to go up by much, if at all.

The Patriots were able to pull that off, getting guys to take less while winning three Super Bowls in four years. If the Ravens hope to remain successful, they’ll need to do the same thing — starting with the new leader of the team, who’s in position to leverage the franchise into a contract averaging $20 million per year.

Though Joe Flacco won a Super Bowl and the MVP award that went along with it, it was the team’s defense that held (some would say literally) the 49ers out of the end zone at the conclusion of the game. Without the Ravens having enough money to sign or keep quality players, the next five or six years for Flacco could be more about making money than chasing more championships.