Why The Hell Does No One Want Lamar Jackson?
We're witnessing one of the biggest mysteries in sports right now...
Lamar Jackson is an enigma wrapped up in a mystery right now.
Prior to the Franchise Tag Deadline last Tuesday, the Baltimore Ravens opted to place the Non-Exclusive Tag on their star quarterback.
It means that Jackson is free to negotiate with other teams, and those teams can submit an offer sheet if they want. The Ravens would then have an opportunity to reject and match that offer sheet if they so wished. Or not as the case may be.
It does appear as though Baltimore is playing a dangerous game of chicken here
What is more mind boggling, however, is the fact that a host of teams wasted no time at all in distancing themselves from Jackson. Done through a series of leaks to media personalities last week, team after team after team took themselves out of the Lamar Jackson sweepstakes.
Those teams in full:
The Miami Dolphins
The Atlanta Falcons
The Carolina Panthers
Las Vegas Raiders
Washington Commanders
Now, I do get why the Dolphins wouldn’t be interested in Jackson. They seem to be all in on Tua Tagovailoa and, aside from the notable concussion issues, he proved in 2022 that he can be the guy for Miami. He just needs to stay healthy.
Plus, those Tom Brady rumors just don’t seem to want to go away.
But, as for the other four teams? What the hell are you doing?!
Are you telling me that the Falcons would be better off with Desmond Ridder piloting the ship rather than Jackson?
Would you have me believe that the Panthers are really going to find a more talented QB than Jackson in the 2023 Draft?
Or, will you try to convince me that the Raiders, who have just let one very good quarterback walk out of the door, would achieve more with Jimmy Garoppolo leading the charge than Jackson? (The Raiders have indeed opted to move forward with Garoppolo as their new QB).
Don’t even get me started with the Commanders. With a very real need at the position, an offensive guru in Eric Bieniemy in place as the team’s new Offensive Coordinator, and not to mention having some intriguing pieces on both sides of the ball, it seems from the outside looking in at least that Jackson and Washington would be a match made in euphoric heaven.
So, what’s the issue here?
Lamar Jackson is a generational talent who has re-written the blueprint for modern-day quarterbacks. He’s like an alien sent down to Planet Earth, who so happened to stumble into an NFL practice and was instantly super-human at the position.
He’s that freaking good.
It seemed laughable, bordering on malpractice, that teams wouldn’t even have a conversation with Jackson first before deciding they were out. We aren’t talking about a scrub here, after all. We’re talking about an uber-talented, freakishly gifted quarterback who has already scaled the dizzying heights of the NFL just five years into his career.
The whole situation is just mind-blowing and puzzling in equal measure, and it feels as though Jackson is being disrespected just because he’s different and because he has embraced it every step of the way.
Given that the talent isn’t in doubt, there has got to be another reason why Jackson isn’t being chased by a bevy of teams right now, and we’re going to attempt to dive into a couple of them here.
Guaranteed Money
NFL owners protect their money and their product like a lioness fiercely protecting her cubs.
The very idea of dolling out guaranteed money to a quarterback and being tied into a long-term arrangement scares the crap out of owners. Just like so many of us duck behind the couch and cover our eyes as soon as a Clicker makes its way on to our screens while watching the brilliant ‘The Last Of Us,’ NFL owners want to run and keep on running as soon as they hear the term ‘guaranteed money.”
Those two words are like kryptonite to owners in football.
While contracts in MLB are fully guaranteed no matter what - Aaron Judge will still get every cent and dollar of the $360 million contract he signed this past offseason even if he suffers a career-threatening injury on Opening Day - NFL owners want to avoid that reality in their sport, and they want the flexibility to be able to rip up a contract two or three years down the line if a player isn’t living up to that contract, or if a shiny new toy appears in the Draft or in Free Agency.
Here’s how friend of the site, Matt Verderame of Sports Illustrated, framed it when he appeared on ‘The Andrew Steele Podcast’ earlier this week:
“I do think that two things are true at the same time. One thing that’s true is NFL owners are ruthless and they’ll do whatever it takes to win. If Jackson was a player who you say ‘if we get this guy we can go to the Super Bowl’, then I don’t think owners would care what other owners wanted because guys want to win. That to me will always be the truth. However, at the same point, this is always true: owners in the NFL were furious when Jimmy Haslam signed Deshaun Watson to that fully guaranteed contract. While I don’t think every owner in the league is going to colude and say ‘hey, we’re not going to sign Lamar Jackson to this deal,’ I do think that there is not much of an appetite to pay anybody fully guaranteed money. If everybody in the league became a free agent tomorrow, I think the only guy who absolutely would get a fully guaranteed contract of any amount of money is Patrick Mahomes. I think Mahomes could legitimately go and get a $500 million fully guaranteed contract. Other than him, maybe Joe Burrow, but Mahomes would be the guy you would go ‘absolutely, he can get whatever he wants.’”
So, there you go. The ghost of Deshaun Watson’s five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract looms large over the NFL, and it seems to be hanging over the Ravens and Jackson.
Watson created the new blueprint for quarterback contracts when he signed that deal, despite having not played for two seasons and not to mention the string of sexual misconduct allegations he has been accused of. It is important to note that Watson has always maintained his innocence.
It goes without saying that the Browns and Watson changed the market for quarterbacks forever, and now Jackson is paying the ultimate price. That’s deeply unfair because Jackson is worth whatever he’s asking for on talent alone.
He’s also a high-character guy, he’s loved and respected by teammates, and he’s changed the quarterback position. He’s unlike any other QB we’ve ever seen before and he has put his body and his livelihood on the line every single week for the past five years. Nobody has put his body on the line more than Jackson, nobody has put his own body in harms way more than Jackson and the fact the Ravens now don’t want to give their franchise cornerstone a fully guaranteed contract just seems insulting, frankly.
There is no doubt that football is the most violent sport on the planet - hockey is second but the NHL does generally look after its players contract wise - and the fact we still have owners fighting against guaranteed money like its the Cordyceps Infection (yes, another The Last Of Us reference, I know) is pure stupid and it does a massive dis-service to the players who literally put their bodies on the line week in and week out.
If the Ravens end up losing one of the most naturally-gifted quarterbacks we’ve ever seen over not wanting to dish out a fully guaranteed contract, then shame on them.
Injuries
Availability is the best ability.
We know that to be true, especially in the NFL when there’s only 17 games in the regular season and even missing two weeks can prove costly to a team. Especially if you’re a quarterback sitting out hurt.
Unfortunately, for as insanely gifted as he is, the biggest knock on Jackson is that he’s not very durable. He played 12 games in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons, missed crucial time at the end of those years and he’s not exactly been healthy for the postseason either.
The fact that Jackson has struggled with lower-body injuries is concerning too. For a player that relies on his legs as much as Jackson does, you can’t blame teams for asking if Jackson will become less and less of an effective runner the older he gets and with the more scars he collects from battle.
While Jackson is much, much more than a runner - we’ll get on to that shortly - his legs and athleticism are lethal weapons and his game would be diminished if either of those are compromised long-term.
Another mark on Jackson is the fact he has yet to do it on the biggest stage. About to enter his sixth season in the NFL, the 26-year-old has appeared in just four playoff games and he hasn’t gotten close to sniffing a deep run.
For a team wanting to make a monster investment in Jackson, and a commitment that he’s their forever guy, the fact he has yet to do it on the biggest stage and hasn’t been durable are two sizeable red flags that are hard to ignore.
You also have to wonder if the fact that Jackson is negotiating with an agent - and he has confirmed he will continue to do so - is also harming his case here. Agents are known for being jackals for a reason - they tend to get the desired result for their clients. Jackson handling his own business is admirable, but whether it pays off or not remains to be seen.
Now, putting all of Baltimore’s playoff failures on Jackson’s shoulders is unfair given that he is just one man and football is the ultimate team game. It isn’t just on Jackson that the Ravens haven’t even sniffed a Super Bowl appearance for a substantial amount of time now. However, as Matt Verderame also noted, that will still be on the minds of a lot of front office personnel across the NFL.
“It is a few things. It is the injuries. He’s been hurt in each of the last two years and that matters, and they are lower-body injuries. That also matters. Number Two - for all of his talent and he’s supremely talented and everyone loves his character, I don’t think that’s an issue, he has won one playoff game. He’s never thrown for 4,000 yards and there is some question of in a game that is increasingly becoming about the passing game and chunk yardage, can he be a driver of that if his legs start to slow down at all? If you are giving him a five or six-year fully guaranteed contract, you’re risking that into his 30’s. And the odds are that he’s not going to be a guy who’s rushing for 1,000 plus yards every year when he’s 31-years-old. I think that’s a little bit of it.”
Look, it isn’t wrong to say there are warts to Jackson’s game - that’s true even with the best of the best like Tom Brady - and it is normal for General Managers to have reservations, but those concerns shouldn’t prevent a simple conversation at the very least.
Jackson Deserves Better
It seems wild that teams in need of a quarterback, and franchises who benefit from upgrading at the position, aren’t queuing up to talk to Jackson and putting in their best offers to test Baltimore’s resolve.
Again, we aren’t talking about a scrub here. Jackson was the unanimous league MVP in 2019. He has perfected the art of being a duel-threat quarterback who is an elite runner. He’s also dangerous when hurling the pigskin too.
We do sleep on Jackson when it comes to the passing game. The below stat proves emphatically that the two-time Pro Bowler is much more than a one-trick pony.
Furthermore, Jackson is one of six players in NFL history to reach 100-plus passing touchdowns and 4,000-plus rushing yards in a career, and he’s the fastest to reach the mark by 31 games. The Ravens are 45-16 in Jackson’s 61 starts since he entered the league in 2018. They average 28.0 points per game when Jackson is on the field compared to 20.0 when he misses games. Baltimore also averages 184.8 rushing yards per game with Jackson as the starter - that’s the most by any starting quarterback since the 1970 merger.
See, we’re talking about a top-5 quarterback here. One who is in his absolute prime at 26-years-old. One who is about to hit the absolute peak of his powers.
So, again, why are quarterback-needy teams distancing themselves from Jackson like he’s the kid at school with hygiene issues?
There should be an absolute stampede for what is a top-tier quarterback in every single sense of the word. These types of uber-talented duel-threat QB’s don’t come around all that often. They don’t grow on trees in some magical quarterback garden.
That isn’t how it works.
Quarterback thirst is a real thing in the NFL. It is like an addiction that can’t be stopped or cured. Fans and media are always quick to rush to take the crown away from a Patrick Mahomes or a Josh Allen in order to anoint the new King of the National Football League. It happens every single year.
There’s also a slew of teams right now that are crying out for a franchise altering QB - yet the market for Jackson remains almost non-existent. We’re repeating ourselves here, but the Commanders could morph into legit contenders with Jackson at the helm. The Panthers now have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft after trading up with the Bears but, let’s be honest, no matter how good a prospect you are, you aren’t automatically going to be a slam dunk success in the NFL. For teams like the Panthers and the Falcons, they can spend their Draft capital on a home-run talent who is established and proven in the league, rather than hope and pray a prospect can figure it out on the biggest stage. Jackson could help them become relevant right now, whereas it is going to take a couple of years with a QB coming out of the Draft. And that’s the best-case scenario.
Of course, logistically, the Ravens will have five days to match whatever Jackson is offered and, if they decide not to match, then the team trading for Jackson will have to give up two First Round Picks.
But again, two First Round Picks for a generational talent and a quarterback that can change a game with his arm and his legs seems a pretty fair price to pay in today’s age. Is there a risk with giving out guaranteed money? Of course there is. However, like with anything in life, nothing good comes free and you have to risk a little in order to get a lot.
The biggest risk is not taking any risk and Jackson is exactly the type of player you’d risk everything for. He’s absolutely worth it.
Plus, if I was a betting man, I’d wager a lot of money that giving Jackson guaranteed money will work out a lot better than it will for the Browns and the guaranteed money they’ve given Watson.
From 4 p.m. ET today, teams can begin negotiating with Jackson under the Non-Exclusive Franchise Tag. If we reach the end of the week and we still haven’t seen a team table a concrete offer, then we have every right to begin to question what the hell the NFL’s problem is with Lamar Jackson.
He deserves better. Way better.
