If there is a mantra that is getting the Ravens through this tumultuous time of roster turnover, it would have to be general manager Ozzie Newsome’s slogan: “Right player, right price.”

Writing at baltimoreravens.com, the club’s vice president for public relations, Kevin Byrne, offers insight into what has led to the departure of so many key players as the free agency period began. Citing how previous Super Bowl winners have fallen far short the next season, Byrne writes:

“We study history. We are not sentimental when it comes to putting together our team. Maybe the previous four Super Bowl winners had a different way in keeping their rosters together the following seasons. We have our way in assembling our 2013 Ravens. One thing we won’t do is restructure a bunch of contracts to save the current roster. … It’s as Ozzie says: ‘It’s like alimony. You still have to pay the money, and it will change the way you live.’”

Byrne mentions how Newsome stays around the team all season instead of heading off to scout college players, in order to get the best possible handle on the value of every member of the roster.

“That means he watched every single play — both at practice and in games — that [Anquan] Boldin, [Dannell] Ellerbe, [Paul] Kruger, [Bernard] Pollard — all of the Ravens for that matter — participated in last season,” Byrne writes.

The clear implication in that sentence is that, while those now former Ravens might have been the right players, their price was wrong. Or, put another way, they weren’t quite right enough.

Tough business. You want to be a GM?