The Lamar Jackson Saga
- Luke Yates
- Mar 16, 2023
- 6 min read
Ravens QB Lamar Jackson won a unanimous MVP in 2019, everyone knew he was going to command top dollar when it was time for an extension. What people couldn’t predict though, is that years of disputes between the NFLPA and NFL owners, along with a certain controversial quarterback deal, would spiral this simple negotiation into the battleground of a decade long war.
On March 18th, 2022, Deshaun Watson signed a 4 year $230 million dollar fully guaranteed deal with the Cleveland Browns. The fallout was instantaneous. Owners from New England to Arizona complained and made it their mission to make Watson’s deal an outlier, and for the rest of that offseason, it was. Broncos QB Russell Wilson signed a 5 year-$245 million dollar contract with $124 million dollars fully guaranteed, and Cardinals QB Kyler Murray inked a 5 year-$230.5 dollar contract with 103.3 million fully guaranteed.
The distinction that is so often confused by the hundreds upon hundreds of media members publishing articles every hour, is what “fully guaranteed” means vs. what “total guarantees” means. Fully guaranteed means that upon signing, whatever that number was goes directly from the owners pocket into an escrow account. So, when Deshaun Watson inked his deal, Jimmy Haslam forked over 230 million large into an account that day. Now, NFL owners are very rich, but not 230 million gone in one second rich. Some are, like Stan Kroenke of the Rams and the Walton’s of the Broncos, but there are plenty like Mike Brown of the Bengals and Mark Davis of the Raiders. The Raiders specifically are so cash poor that they can’t even fire their head coach if they wanted to because they can’t pay another one. These owners do not have the liquid cash on hand for fully guaranteed contracts to become the norm, but the NFLPA, advocating for players (as they should be) have been pushing for fully guaranteed deals for years and years. Many Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) in the past have been held up by this war, and now, the Ravens sit in the eye of the hurricane with Lamar Jackson.
Another complicating factor, Lamar Jackson does not have an agent. He has a “camp” as has been reported, but who that is and how large it is; who knows. This complicated things because it makes a business negotiation more personal. Agents also don’t want Jackson to succeed with a mega deal without an agent because that hurts their business. When you are negotiating with a middle man, it’s a lot easier because you aren’t telling a player to their face that you want to pay them less, but the Ravens and Jackson have agreed to a privacy pact. Jackson and his camp don’t leak stuff to the media, the Ravens won’t either, Jackson wanted this private and the Ravens happily obliged. But the NFLPA didn’t play by these rules.
The NFLPA has been advising Jackson with his negotiating, as it is in their best interest for him to ink a fully guaranteed contract. And right before the 2022 season kicked off, we got a leak. ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported that Jackson had turned down a 6 year, $290 million dollar deal with 133 million fully guaranteed and $200 million dollars, in total guarantees. Now let’s talk about those “total guarantees” though. Jackson would receive a bonus $42 million guaranteed if he is on the roster on the 3rd day of the 2024 league year. This is called an injury guarantee but Jackson’s health status does not effect him getting this money, Kyler Murray just got his 2023 injury guarantee money and he tore his ACL and is in the middle of a long rehab. The Ravens would incur a truly devastating amount of dead money if they were to trade/cut Jackson before that 3rd day of the 2024 league year, so that full $175 million is essentially guaranteed, the only reason it isn’t fully guaranteed is so the Ravens can have more cap flexibility. A further $25 million can be earned guaranteed if Jackson is on the roster on the 5th day of the 2026 league year, which is further away, so maybe it’s more unlikely than the first injury guarantee, but still probably very likely, which would bring the total to $200 million dollars guaranteed. Jackson took to Twitter after ESPN’s Adam Schefter revealed a bit more of the details of this September 2022 contract, saying “133/3years fully guaranteed😒 but I need an agent🤣🤦🏾♂️.”
What Jackson is (probably) referring to here, is the 133 million dollars of fully guaranteed money at signing, which, according to Jackson, was only guaranteed over the first 3 years of the 6 year contract. Keep in mind that every single contract report that you’ve seen about Jackson is from this report in September of 2022, this is it. The only detailed leak that has ever been produced in this situation as both the Ravens and Jackson’s camp have been tight lipped. This leak was most likely from the NFLPA.
Personally, if Jackson had an agent, he would probably end up signing this deal, it is second best in every single way behind Watson, which the league has unanimously agreed is an outlier and they are ignoring it. Should Jackson get more than Watson? Absolutely! But when you have a league of owners who have all locked arms together against paying you that much, you have to take your highest bid. What I am worried about for Jackson is that he hits the open market on his non-exclusive franchise tag, and the deal he’s seeking isn’t out there. Most of the teams in position to actually take him on have ignored him entirely, with teams like the Falcons and Panthers making aggressive moves in free agency to either sign players like the Falcons, or trade up to the #1 pick like the Panthers. The only team that really makes sense at this point is the Colts. They just cut Matt Ryan, and have a decent amount of space and a need for a QB. But the Ravens will most likely match whatever deal Jackson gets IF he can even get it. So basically, for Jackson to win here he needs a team that has most likely never met him, and wants to jump through the hoops of talking to him, which the Ravens have had troubles with, and have their cap space completely frozen for weeks to be able to sign Jackson. It’s such an uphill battle. And the team also has to reason that even if they make it work, the Ravens can and most likely will match it instantly, making all of that effort for nothing and throw them back into a free agent market that they haven’t been able to touch for weeks.
The cost of Jackson losing this gamble are far worse for him. If he ends up with no offers, he either gets to sign whatever the Ravens offer, which will probably be that exact September 2022 deal or less, or he can play on the non-exclusive tag, which is 32.4 million dollars. Far less than he could actually earn with a long term contract. And it doesn’t get better, either, repeated franchise tags are on a 1.2x multiplier year over year, so Jackson would only earn 38.8 million next year, once again way less than he is worth. His actual best franchise tag route would be to have gotten the exclusive franchise tag, which would, over 3 years, be relatively equivalent to what he would earn on a long term deal, and now he’s a free agent and can go wherever he wants. But the NFLPA muddying the water by releasing that September 2022 deal that Jackson turned down soured potential suitors from making a run at him, which made the Ravens confident in using the non-exclusive franchise tag.
At the end of this, all this turmoil is Jackson, who wants as much money as possible, the Ravens who want to pay him less than that, the owners who don’t want fully guaranteed to be the norm, the NFLPA who does, and agents who don’t want someone without an agent to negotiate the biggest contract in NFL history. It’s an unbelievably complex and complicated war that the Ravens have been thrust into the middle of. All of this is based on micro fragments of information that have actually been released. Who knows what else is going on behind the scenes, the tweets from Jackson in response to Schefter are pretty much the only word we’ve gotten from Jackson or the Ravens themselves.
This saga most likely will not be ending anytime soon, if you had to guess, most likely Jackson plays on the tag for the Ravens this season, and then we get to do this entire charade again next off season. The next weeks as we head up to the draft will certainly have some developments in this story, but I just cannot see a light at the end of this incredibly miserable tunnel coming soon.
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