hear that?
Yes and no.
A deafening silence surrounds the future of one of the best young NFL quarterbacks. But out of that silence booms a message loud and clear.
We’re a week into free agency, and it’s been two weeks since the Baltimore Ravens used the franchise tag on Lamar Jackson to retain his rights. Using the non-exclusive tag basically signaled that the Ravens are open to business. But nobody burns the telephone lines. No team cries out for the services of a generational talent who, despite only being 26 years old, has already accumulated a rare unanimous MVP selection, 10 NFL records and 13 other team records.
All Jackson has done since taking over Baltimore’s starter midway through his rookie season in 2018 is put the Ravens on his back and make them relevant. In a league starved for elite quarterbacks, the lack of even a few exploratory talks is unfathomable for a player of Jackson’s caliber.
Owners of all quarterback-needing teams quickly ensured that interest in Jackson was turned down shortly after news of his franchise tag designation broke.
They have spoken, and quite authoritatively. Your message is clear.
In professional football, winning is trumps. Teams will turn a blind eye to the most serious transgressions. They will show mercy to any disgraced player if he has the redeeming quality of increasing a team’s chances of winning the Lombardi Trophy. But here we get another reminder that the only thing more important to owners than winning is control.
Instead of whipping out the checkbook and rewarding Jackson for almost single-handedly making Baltimore a contender, the Ravens suddenly favor thrift. Instead of capitalizing on Baltimore’s miscalculation and attempting to pry away such a transformational player, other owners are content to sit this one out.
There will be no more quarterback market resets with stunning, long-term, fully guaranteed contracts. Not on her watch. This is the tough stance taken.
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Owners were upset when the Cleveland Browns awarded controversial Deshaun Watson a record-breaking guaranteed $230 million contract (the first of its kind) to outbid the Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panthers. And they are keen to avoid a repeat.
After Watson’s signing, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti publicly called the deal bad for business because it “would make negotiating with others more difficult”.
Bisciotti knew he had his own quarterback contract to look after in the coming year.
Now that time has come, and he and the face of his franchise remain at a stalemate because Jackson — aware of the market value, his skills and his importance to the Ravens — wants Watson-like money. Or at least he wants reassurances that his team is fully financially committed to him, through thick and thin.
Jackson believed that if not the Ravens, any team would value him adequately. But the wait for such an suitor continues and is likely to drag on for some time. Recently, a Jackson representative reached out to several teams to initiate negotiations over a possible bid sheet, first reported by Pro Football Talk and confirmed by a league source who had been briefed on the situation. But everything stays calm.
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Unlike their peers in other professional leagues, NFL owners have always resisted the idea of fully guaranteed contracts. The Browns were more than desperate. But traditionally, in an attempt to save money and ensure their players remain committed to the franchise, NFL owners have opted for deals that require players to meet certain incentives in order to reach their long-term maximum earning potential. Out clauses in contracts also make players more expendable, making it easier for teams to weed out aging, beaten and broken, or underperforming players. However, deals like Watson’s mean teams remain on the hook for the entire contract period. Such agreements also further empower the players, and that’s exactly what the owners don’t want.
Bisciotti knows exactly how much Jackson means to the Ravens. They went 3-5 and were anemic on offense in the games Tyler Huntley had started the last two seasons. But the idea of giving away so much money and control just seems like too massive a horse pill to swallow. It’s a terrifying thought for owners to bow to the demands of this supremely gifted 26-year-old black man, who has already defied conventionality and resisted the idea of hiring an agent because he believes he can negotiate the terms of his contract own.
And just as frightening is the knowledge that if the Ravens give in to Jackson, they’ll open the floodgates for others to make similar contract demands because Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts are next in line for massive paydays.
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Bisciotti doesn’t want to be that guy. His co-owners don’t want that either. And that’s why, as March draws to a close, there won’t be a bevy of teams vying for Jackson’s services.
Ask around, and it’s hard to find anyone associated with the NFL — current and former players, talent assessors at various levels, union officials — who doesn’t suspect owner collusion; a tongue-in-cheek agreement to hold the line and resist calls for more of those Watson-like deals.
The lack of progress towards an agreement between Baltimore and Jackson over the last year had already raised suspicions. But then all the leaks from teams uninterested in exploring trading opportunities really set off alarms.
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Kirk Cousin became the first NFL quarterback in 2018 to sign a fully guaranteed multi-year contract. As DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, wrote in a column published on the union’s website last week, “This time (the owners) are playing the game themselves in a criminal way.
“We’re all staring at the same answer to the obvious questions. Why did Cousins and Watson get fully guaranteed contracts while others didn’t? Or to be more specific, why have the Baltimore Ravens and other teams made it so clear publicly (at least initially) that they will not compensate Lamar Jackson with a fully guaranteed contract like Cousins’ or Watson’s? To put it bluntly, in my nearly 15-year career as an executive director, I’ve never seen teams so quick to publicly express their lack of interest in an MVP quarterback who’s in his prime and who also gets an injury guarantee, regardless of his contract.”
The owners will of course deny any allegation of collusion against them. And so we hear whispers/excuses as to why Jackson doesn’t deserve such a payday.
• Injury history (Jackson has missed five games in a row in each of the last two seasons).
• Lack of playoff success (Jackson is 1-3 in the postseason).
• The absence of an agent to ensure more rational and emotion-free negotiations.
But the reasons are wrong.
Over the past year, Baltimore linebacker Roquan Smith and Houston left tackle Laremy Tunsil have both independently negotiated deals to rebalance the market.
And injury history hasn’t hurt the earning potential of either Watson or Kyler Murray, who signed a $230 million contract with a $160 million guarantee last season. Watson (1: 2) or Murray (0: 1) did not hurt a lack of playoff success either.
Jackson has a 45-16 record in five seasons, with 101 touchdown passes and just 38 interceptions for a 64.3 percent completion rate. He also has 24 touchdowns in 70 games. He is the only quarterback in NFL history to rush for 3,000 yards and 1,000 yards in the same season.
Watson went 28-25 in four seasons with Houston. Otherwise, his numbers (104 pass touchdowns, 36 interceptions with a 67 percent completion rate) are not too different from Jackson’s. He also did not play in 2021 after attempting to break away from Houston while facing more than two dozen allegations of sexual assault and/or misconduct.
So if Watson could still draw the rabid attention of multiple teams and eventually land such a dizzying deal, why can’t Jackson, who has a stellar off-field record? Why didn’t a few teams ask what it would take to close a deal?
Those deals don’t sound that crazy, do they?
Jackson’s frustration is understandable given all of these elements. The Ravens’ deals are nowhere near what Watson got from Cleveland. And to hear Jackson tell it — or at least to piece together the breadcrumbs he dropped into a few limited tweets for not actually doing interviews on the subject — Baltimore’s offerings weren’t the kind you’d expect from a would expect organization that respected and valued their star quarterback.
The Ravens’ footsteps reek of those taken by management, who knew in advance they would have no competition.
The disrespect is real. The Ravens couldn’t even bring themselves to pay Jackson like a true franchise cornerstone for a year. Jackson is said to earn $32.4 million from the non-exclusive tag. That’s significantly less than he could have earned if the Ravens had tagged him exclusively ($45 million salary for 2023).
Jackson appeared to hint on Twitter last week that he was eventually offered $133 million guaranteed by the Ravens over three years. As he implied in the same tweet, he didn’t need an agent to know not to accept a deal where the average annual salary was below that of Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Murray and Watson and others.
Top QB Annual Salaries (per Over the Cap)
| player | team | Old | overall value | average/year | Total guaranteed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
packer | 39 | $150,815,000 | $50,271,667 | $150,665,000 | |
Broncos | 34 | $245,000,000 | $49,000,000 | $165,000,000 | |
cardinals | 25 | $230,500,000 | $46,100,000 | $160,000,000 | |
Brown | 27 | $230,000,000 | $46,000,000 | $230,000,000 | |
bosses | 27 | $450,000,000 | $45,000,000 | $141,000,000 |
And so Jackson seems content to continue betting on himself.
The Ravens and their quarterback could return to the negotiating table. Franchise tag is not set until July 17 for the season.
Members of the competing front offices believe that even if the Ravens remain opposed to giving Jackson a long-term deal, a reasonable offer would be on the order of three years, with $144 million fully guaranteed. That would secure Jackson an average annual salary of $48 million. That would be just under what Rodgers and Wilson make, but a worthy number given Jackson’s influence and more than what Murray, Watson, Mahomes and Josh Allen ($43 million) make annually. Jackson would also find himself in the favorable position of being able to meet free hand again before the age of 30.
However, if the Ravens maintain their current stance, the stalemate could last. And if Jackson continues to insist on fully guaranteed deals, he could eventually follow the script being used by another quarterback. Cousins played for Washington on franchise tag in both 2016 and 2017 before signing in free agency with Minnesota in 2018 to a fully guaranteed contract. Cousins have since signed two more renewals – both also fully guaranteed.
Eventually some team will give in and give Jackson what he wants.
This is a kind of hardball for a long game. But given the way the Ravens have handled this situation so far — showing a stubbornness and commitment to staying in control rather than winning and rewarding excellence — you can really blame the businessman-turned-quarterback give?
(Photo: Lamar Jackson: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)