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Charlie Kolar’s voice dropped. This was hard, the end of the season, maybe the end of his Ravens career. The tight end has long been the picture of joy and merriment in Baltimore. A heartbreaking loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday night, which denied the Ravens a fourth straight playoff appearance, had darkened his disposition.

“It’s tough to say, but I’m proud of this team,” Kolar said Monday, his voice catching. He shook his head slightly, as if to reset himself. “There are no real words to put into it. It’s really hard to process, because we all thought we were going to win that game, and then 12 hours later, it’s the team meeting, and the season is over. I wish I had better words, but I try to be grateful, try to be present.”

As the Ravens cleared out their lockers Monday in Owings Mills, they wrestled with two competing forces: stasis and change. Again, players were left to answer questions about another late-season flop. Again, players were left to wonder whether they’d be part of the team’s plans to fix it.

Kolar, one of over two dozen pending free agents on the Ravens’ roster, said he would “love” to remain in Baltimore, where he’s built himself into a reliable in-line tight end. But he could not say what the future held. With a projected $31.4 million in 2026 salary cap space, according to Over the Cap, the Ravens can’t afford to keep everyone.

“I’ve never gone through it, so I’m not sure,” Kolar said of free agency. He later joked: “I’m unemployed now, so I have to go get a job.”

Here’s what nine other notable pending free agents said Sunday and Monday as they scattered for an offseason starting sooner than they could’ve expected.

C Tyler Linderbaum

Linderbaum, a three-time Pro Bowl selection, said he “absolutely” wants to remain in Baltimore.

But the center market hasn’t changed substantially in the months since the Ravens ramped up contract talks. An extension would almost assuredly make Linderbaum, 25, one of the NFL’s highest-paid interior linemen, ahead of Kansas City Chiefs center Creed Humphrey in average annual value ($18 million).

“Each and every year, each and every week, everything’s up in the air,” said Linderbaum, who entered Week 18 ranked third among interior linemen in ESPN’s pass block win rate. “But we have the best job in the world playing professional football and have to be grateful for that, for sure.”

Linderbaum, a team leader, said the Ravens are “doing everything possible to try to get over that hump.”

“Obviously, I am disappointed about last night, but I am thankful for the season and for the guys,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot. Obviously, it’s not the season that we wanted. The one thing about the team is, we never quit. Always keep fighting until the very end, and that’s why you appreciate it.”

WR DeAndre Hopkins

Hopkins, 33, came to Baltimore to play with running back Derrick Henry and quarterback Lamar Jackson — and to win a Super Bowl.

But after Sunday’s loss, the Ravens were knocked out of the postseason before it even started. Hopkins spent some time after the game in Pittsburgh chatting with Henry and Jackson in the locker room.

“Obviously, those guys are my friends, and we were 3 yards wide right from playing postseason football,” Hopkins said. “So for me, I hate it for those guys. They’ve been here longer than me — just wish I had an opportunity to help those guys more.”

Despite proving he still has the ability to win contested catches, Hopkins was rarely featured in coordinator Todd Monken’s offense. He had 22 catches on 39 targets for 330 yards, all career lows by a wide margin. Jackson said that target share needed to change — but in the Ravens’ final game, Hopkins was targeted just twice. Neither pass was catchable.

Hopkins has few highlights from this year, but he still feels capable of contributing as he wraps up Year 13 and looks ahead to Year 14. He is a five-time Pro Bowler, and teammates said he still felt like “the GOAT” — greatest of all time — at practice.

“I know I still want to play another year,” Hopkins said Sunday. “It’s football, man, that’s what comes with it, the good and the bad. So we’ll see. Obviously, I’m a free agent. We’ll see, man.”

TE Isaiah Likely

For the first time in Likely’s NFL career, he’s not sure he’ll be back in Baltimore.

A day after the Ravens’ season ended, he said he was trying not to think about the future. He’ll leave that to his agent.

“I feel like everybody says a vanilla answer like that, but it’s honestly my first time ever not knowing,” Likely said. “So I’m really just keeping one foot in front of the other, and I’m blessed to be getting out of the season healthy, being able to just put everything I do on tape, and I’m really just going from there.”

Likely seemed poised for a big season after two years of consistent growth. However, 2025 did not go as planned.

His training camp was cut short after he broke his foot in late July during a one-on-one drill. He missed the start of the season and didn’t return until Week 3.

As the Ravens’ offense stumbled, so did he. Likely finished with 27 catches on 36 targets for 307 yards, all career lows. He had two touchdowns called back in back-to-back weeks against the Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers. One was deemed a fumble at the goal line. The other was considered an incompletion because he didn’t make a “football move” after taking two steps in the end zone.

However, Likely had a chance for redemption in the rematch against the Steelers. As the Ravens drove down the field with less than a minute left Sunday, looking for at least a field goal to erase a two-point deficit, Likely made what coach John Harbaugh called a “phenomenal catch” to get the team into field goal range.

“For sure,” Likely said when asked whether he thought the Ravens would win after his 26-yard catch on fourth-and-7. “It was just the momentum of going in after the play. Everybody was at an all-time high, especially with what we had done in the whole fourth quarter, coming back, dialing in the whole time. I thought we gave ourselves a good shot.”

But his heroics were forgotten after rookie kicker Tyler Loop’s missed field goal knocked the team out of playoff contention. And with fellow tight end Mark Andrews having already signed an extension, Likely’s days in Baltimore are likely numbered.

FB Patrick Ricard

Ricard has been in Baltimore since 2017, when he arrived as a no-name undrafted rookie. There have been plenty of highs in the years since — four AFC North titles, an AFC championship game appearance, countless offensive records broken with his help.

Nothing has stopped the seasons from ending in sorrow, however.

“It just hurts,” Ricard said. “I feel for the fans of the city, just the heartaches after years and years. And it always seems like, to start the year, we always have a great group that I feel like we underperform just with the talent that we have. I feel like the fans deserve better, and it’s just hard. It’s hard to always seem like it’s just one play that ends up defining our season. It’s never just one play. There are 17 games that we felt like we should have won a majority of.”

Ricard, 31, a six-time Pro Bowl pick, missed the Ravens’ first six games this season because of a nagging calf injury. But he looked more like his old, punishing self by year’s end, when the Ravens had reestablished their running game as one of the NFL’s best.

Ricard signed a one-year, $2.9 million deal last offseason, and he said he would “love” to return to Baltimore and one day retire as a Raven.

“The last two times I was a free agent, the Ravens wanted me back right away, so I feel like that could happen again if history repeats itself,” he said. “I think I had a good year. I think I showed my value to this team, and I showed that I want to be back, so there are conversations that need to be had.”

OLB Dre’Mont Jones

Jones ended the season in a far better place than where he began. The Titans, for whom Jones started nine games before a midseason trade, went 3-14 and were outscored by over 200 points overall; the Ravens were a missed field goal away from winning the AFC North.

But the Ravens will be stuck watching the playoffs from home, just like Tennessee.

“Just overwhelming disappointment,” Jones said. “You work so hard. You prepare so much, and then the outcome doesn’t turn out to be what you want it to be. It just sucks.”

Jones, who turned 29 on Monday, didn’t hurt his free-agent market over his nine games in Baltimore. He had 2.5 sacks and 15 quarterback hits for the Ravens, giving him seven sacks and 24 quarterback hits total in 2025, both career highs. And because the Ravens didn’t make the playoffs, the conditional draft pick that general manager Eric DeCosta traded to Tennessee will remain a fifth-rounder, instead of being upgraded to a fourth-rounder.

Jones signed a one-year, $8.5 million deal with the Titans last offseason. The Ravens need pass rush help, but it’s unclear how much cap space they can allocate for the unit this offseason. Jones said he would enter free agency “with open arms, a clear mind and a clear head. I’m not going to think too much in-depth about it until the time [comes], which is probably March, and we’ll see what happens from there. I love being a Raven, and it’d be great if that continues, but it depends on what they see.”

OLB Kyle Van Noy

Over Van Noy’s first two years in Baltimore, he was one of the Ravens’ best bargain signings. He had nine sacks in 2023 and a career-high 12.5 in 2024, earning a Pro Bowl nod along the way.

At training camp this past summer, with Van Noy entering the final year of his two-year, $9 million deal, he hinted at his desire for a new, richer deal.

“There’s just other situations where I feel like I’m very valuable,” Van Noy said in July, “and some people think I’m more valuable than others.”

His stock is cooler now. Van Noy finished with just two sacks this season, his fewest in a decade. He also turns 35 in March.

“I don’t want to make any decisions right now,” he said Monday. “It’s too early to say, especially after an emotional game like that was last night, to say, ‘I’m retiring,’ or, ‘I’m going to keep playing.’ I think I’m just going to keep my options open and keep an open mind. Just have conversations, but I definitely would like to be back with the Ravens if that was a possibility. Hopefully, it will be. Conversations will be had.”

S Alohi Gilman

Statistically, Gilman said Monday, the Ravens weren’t supposed to have a shot at the playoffs after their 1-5 start.

Yeah, their finish was disappointing, but Gilman tries to see the good even in bad circumstances. He said he had a “journey of a season” in being traded from the Los Angeles Chargers to the Ravens for outside linebacker Odafe Oweh and a late-round pick swap in early October.

“I think for me, I always just look back and reflect, and just filled with gratitude for being in this opportunity in this position I was able to do, improving as a player, gaining new brothers and relationships,” Gilman said. “So that’s definitely the reflection for me.”

Gilman said this season helped him play more freely. He had 68 tackles, a forced fumble and a touchdown return with the Ravens. Combined with his Chargers stats, 2025 was the most productive season of his career. He said Ravens coaches gave him that confidence, and it meant the world to him. Baltimore also helped him grow as a leader.

From the players to the coaches to the identity of the franchise, Gilman said he loves everything about the Ravens.

“It would be a privilege to be back,” Gilman said.

S Ar’Darius Washington

Last season, Washington’s work at safety alongside Kyle Hamilton helped stabilize the Ravens’ defense and earned him a $3.3 million restricted-free-agent tender.

This offseason, his future in Baltimore is murky.

Washington suffered a torn Achilles tendon in offseason training and did not return until Week 15. He had been projected to play in a safety rotation with Kyle Hamilton and rookie Malaki Starks. But with the secondary’s early-season struggles, the Ravens traded for Gilman, who rarely came off the field, even after Washington returned.

“It was tough at the beginning, watching the season go on,” Washington said. “But then I had a goal to make it back, give us a chance to win and help the team win. So that was the goal, and we didn’t reach that goal.”

He said that after playing in four games, his Achilles is “fine,” if not 100%. He added that no one is 100% at this point in the season.

Washington, who struggled against the Steelers, hasn’t looked ahead yet. He said he’s going to take some time processing the season’s end and will take a few days off before figuring out his next move and evaluating his four games of film. He finished with seven tackles, three quarterback hits and a forced fumble.

P Jordan Stout

In 2022, the Ravens drafted Stout as Sam Koch’s replacement. They bet big on the former Virginia Tech and Penn State standout; the Ravens were only the second team since 2010 to draft a punter as high as the fourth round.

Over his first three years in Baltimore, Stout showed that he had a big leg. But he was inconsistent at times — he’d pin a team inside the 20-yard line with one punt, then shank the next.

But in his contract year, Stout stepped up. He averaged 50.1 yards per punt, a career high and the fifth-best mark in the NFL, and earned a Pro Bowl nod.

In addition to punting, Stout has established himself as a reliable holder. This season, he became a mentor to rookie kicker Tyler Loop, who, like Stout, had big shoes to fill after being drafted.

Loop was ”the guy that was 90% on field goals this year, and people still weren’t very happy with him,” Stout said. “It’s just a testament to what Justin [Tucker] did over his tenure at the Ravens, but I don’t think it holds him back in the slightest. He doesn’t really think about it much.”

Stout said earlier this season that the Ravens’ special teams units have been closer than ever in his four years with the team. If he can, he wants to remain a Raven.

An extension could make Stout the NFL’s highest-paid punter. The Seattle Seahawks’ Michael Dickson leads the position with a contract worth $4.1 million annually.

“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” Stout said.