The Ravens have agreed to terms with Pro Bowl left tackle Ronnie Stanley on a three-year contract extension worth a reported $60 million, locking down their top offseason priority and stabilizing their offensive line ahead of the start of free agency.

Stanley, 30, was set to reach the open market next week, and he would’ve been one of the NFL’s most coveted free agents. But the Ravens were determined to keep their longtime left tackle in Baltimore, and on Saturday rewarded his bounce-back 2024 season with a deal that ranks among the league’s richest at the position.

With Stanley’s return, the Ravens should have one of the league’s best offensive lines in 2025. Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum, right guard Daniel Faalele and right tackle Roger Rosengarten are also returning from a front that finished last season as Pro Football Focus’ ninth-rated unit, and Andrew Vorhees, a Week 1 starter in 2024, is the early favorite to step in at left guard for pending free agent Patrick Mekari.

Stanley’s revitalization last year helped unlock a second straight All-Pro season for quarterback Lamar Jackson and a record-breaking Ravens offense. After being limited to 31 of a possible 67 games from 2020 to 2023, when knee and ankle injuries derailed a potential Pro Football Hall of Fame trajectory, Stanley appeared in all 17 games last season and played a career-high 1,089 offensive snaps. He allowed just two sacks and four quarterback hits, according to Pro Football Focus, and ranked 12th among qualifying tackles in ESPN’s pass block win rate.

Stanley’s new deal comes just a year after he agreed to a restructured contract that could’ve hastened his exit from Baltimore. Stanley, who in 2020 became the NFL’s highest-paid lineman with an extension through the 2025 season, took a $7.5 million pay cut last offseason and shortened his deal by a year. He said in June that he would have regretted leaving the organization on the wrong “note” and that it was “really killing me on the inside just knowing that I wasn’t playing to my potential.”

“My goal is literally just to feel normal,” Stanley, a first-team All-Pro in 2019, told The Banner last season. “… Like, normal in the sense where I could just move how I imagined myself moving.”

Stanley said he felt “as strong and as quick and as athletic as I’ve ever been” ahead of training camp, and a committed workout regimen helped him stay healthy. During the preseason and regular season, Stanley rarely missed practice.

As Jackson’s blind-side protector, he was able to anchor against bull rushes, which he’d struggled with in recent years. And, as a run blocker, his lateral mobility and sound technique made him a cornerstone of the Ravens’ top-ranked ground game. No team came within even 400 yards of the Ravens’ rushing totals (1,427) on carries off the left tackle or on outside runs to the left, according to Sports Info Solutions.

Stanley’s form faded somewhat over the second half of last season — he allowed no sacks and 11 pressures through Week 9, according to PFF, then two sacks and 20 pressures afterward — but he rarely looked overmatched. Offensive coordinator Todd Monken allocated most of his help in pass protection to the right side of the line, where Rosengarten and Faalele were growing into their roles as first-time starters.

“We just let him play over there,” offensive line coach George Warhop said in December. “We don’t do much for him, so that says a lot. I think Ronnie approaches each week with fresh eyes. I think he has a plan going into the game. I think he practices his plan. I think on the sidelines he’s very intuitive — great communication, talks about what’s going on, talks to the other guys. I’m just excited to have him here and have him doing what he’s doing physically.”

Off the field, teammates said, Stanley’s veteran presence was just as valued. He hosted dinners for the offensive line, worked after practice to help hone technique and took on even more of a leadership role as the team grieved the loss of offensive line coach Joe D’Alessandris, who died in late August at age 70.

“He wants to coach the younger guys,” Mekari said of Stanley. “He helps Roger out; he helps all of us out after practice, just focused on the smaller, detailed stuff.”

After the Ravens’ divisional-round loss to the Buffalo Bills in January, Stanley declined to speculate on his future with the franchise. The pain of another disappointing playoff defeat was too raw. “I’m still kind of thinking about what just happened. It’s a tough loss. I’m going to think about that for a little bit.”

At the Ravens’ season-ending news conference, general manager Eric DeCosta said the team’s goal is “to always have the best offensive line that we can have,” but he left open the possibility that Rosengarten would move to left tackle in 2025. “We’ll overturn every rock to find as many good offensive linemen as we can,” DeCosta said.

At the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis last week, his tone changed somewhat. DeCosta expressed optimism about re-signing Stanley, as did coach John Harbaugh, even as tackle-needy teams with considerably more cap space were lining up. The Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots were reportedly interested in Stanley, who could’ve reached a deal with a new team as early as Monday afternoon, the start of the NFL’s legal “tampering” window.

“I just know how much fun playing on an offense like this is,” Stanley said in an interview with legendary Ravens tackle Jonathan Ogden last season. “And I’ll always choose winning over money any day.”

Stanley figures to be the Ravens’ lone big-ticket item in this year’s free-agent class. DeCosta entered Saturday with just $10.5 million in cap space, according to Russell Street Report, though the release of safety Marcus Williams and kicker Justin Tucker would free up millions more. The NFL is investigating Tucker in the wake of The Banner’s reporting on 16 massage therapists from Baltimore-area spas who have accused the kicker of sexual misconduct. Tucker has denied the allegations.

Stanley’s extension ensures the 2016 first-round pick will return for a 10th year in Baltimore. It also likely closes the door on a new deal for the versatile Mekari, who started a career-high 17 games last season. Over his six years in Baltimore, Mekari developed into a do-it-all “unicorn” up front, playing at least 672 career snaps at left tackle, left guard, center and right tackle, along with 272 at right guard.

Now the Ravens will turn their attention to filling out the rest of their roster, focusing on their own pending free agents, such as Pro Bowl fullback Patrick Ricard and linebacker Malik Harrison, as well as low-cost pieces who won’t count against the team in the compensatory-pick formula.

“You guys know the Ravens,” DeCosta said at the scouting combine. “Right player, right price. We don’t have a lot of cap room. … We’re trying to find 50 grand [$50,000] here, 75 grand there in the couch cushion. But we’re not a team that’s going to make a lot of splashes, generally speaking.”