Lamar Jackson Holding All the Cards in Potential New Deal With Ravens
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Lamar Jackson is not in a rush to sign a long-term deal with the Ravens.
And why not?
Jackson holds all of the cards.
He will make $23.02 million playing under his fifth-year option this season. That means he will make $1.28 million per week, which is almost the equivalent of his entire 2021 salary. Jackson also made $9.8 million in bonus money over his four-year career and he will surpass that number by Week 8, according to stats by CBS.
If the Ravens cannot reach a long-term deal with Jackson, they could place the franchise tag on him in 2023, which will pay him $43.5 million per season. A second tag would require the team to give him a 120% raise, which would reportedly boost his salary to $52.2 million.
That equates to $118.7M over three years.
"Lamar has them by the balls, whether he knows it or not." an NFL contract negotiator told NFL Insider Jason La Canfora. "And I get the impression that he does. They can't carry him at $23M (against the cap on his fifth-year option) and do anything meaningful in free agency. And there aren't any quarterbacks out there. Trust me. We're looking at all of them."
Lamar Jackson's Future With the Ravens
Lamar Jackson's Future With the Ravens
Even though Jackson does not have a formal agent, he is reportedly shrewd when it comes to making a deal. In addition, La Canfora reported that the Ravens offered Jackson a deal closer to $35 million per season, which is under market value.
Josh Allen's reached a six-year, $258 million extension with the Buffalo Bills that pays him $43 million annually and includes $150 million of guaranteed money. The contract makes Allen the second-highest-paid total value contract behind the $450 million deal that Patrick Mahomes signed with the Kansas City Chiefs last year.
Dak Prescott reached a four-year, $160 million contract with the Dallas Cowboys that further set the table for Jackson's future with the Ravens.
If Baltimore, by chance, decides to part ways with Jackson, he would have little trouble landing a massive contract in the open market. Several teams need quarterbacks.
Ravens GM Eric DeCosta is confident the team will eventually reach a new long-term deal with Jackson. They're going to have to land that new contract because it will be tough to afford Jackson under the franchise-tag scenario.
“I hope so, at some point, that we will," DeCosta replied when asked about finalizing a deal. "I think we’ve discussed this at length, and I said this before: We will work at Lamar’s [Jackson] urgency. So, he and I have had ongoing discussions. We’ve talked fairly recently, as well. He knows how to find me; I know how to find him. I was very happy to see him working out on the west coast recently with some of our guys.
"That’s exciting [and] something that we really think will help us this year be the very best team that we can be. He’s a guy that when we think about the Ravens three, four, five years from now, we envision Lamar being a very, very big part of that team and definitely a player that can help us win Super Bowls.”
