Lamar Jackson

Lamar Jackson has moved his deadline for a 2022 extension agreement up to Friday. The former MVP confirmed this today but added talks have not broken off. This is an artificial deadline, and Jackson added the talks “probably” will end Friday. The sides negotiated into last season, but the agent-less QB is against such a path this year.

Baltimore’s star quarterback has been connected to seeking a fully guaranteed deal, a la Deshaun Watson, while the Ravens are against such a structure. The Ravens are believed to have offered a deal north of Kyler Murray‘s $46.1MM-per-year pact, but Jackson remains unsigned. Two days ahead of this deadline, pessimism defines these talks.

Barring an 11th-hour shift, Jackson is expected to play the 2022 season on his $23MM fifth-year option, Mark Maske of the Washington Post notes. Previously, it was thought Jackson was giving the Ravens until their Sunday opener. But considering this deadline is designed to separate Jackson negotiations from his preparation for the 17-game season, it makes sense the three-time Pro Bowler would want to head into the weekend with this matter — extension or not — behind him.

A 2021 Baltimore offer matched the Bills’ $43MM-AAV Josh Allen extension. Jackson passed. While the Ravens have upped their offer this year and may well have increased it again this week, it is worth wondering where the team’s cutoff point resides.

Russell Wilson‘s five-year, $245MM Broncos extension includes $124MM fully guaranteed. Denver’s deal locks the nine-time Pro Bowler in through at least 2025, due to a March 2024 guarantee trigger. Jackson, 25, being eight years younger than the former Super Bowl winner would give him an excellent case to bridge the gulf between Wilson’s guarantee figure and Watson’s $230MM total. As the Broncos and Cardinals’ offseason deals have shown, teams are determined to make the Browns’ Watson contract an outlier. Whereas Kirk Cousins received his fully guaranteed Vikings deal (three years, $84MM) in free agency, as the Jets lurked, four teams were vying for Watson via trade. The Browns only offered their shocking proposal after being eliminated earlier in the process.

With the Year 5 option and two franchise tags as leverage, the Ravens will not offer a $230MM guarantee. It will be interesting to learn what Baltimore has proposed, guarantee-wise. Those tag possibilities also can work in Jackson’s favor. Even the first of them, should the Ravens give Jackson the exclusive tag, would move toward the $45MM range. That would be an unprecedented cap-clogging figure for the team to navigate ahead of the 2023 free agency period. No deal coming together by Friday would put this saga on track toward tag No. 1 come March.

Lamar Jackson has set Week 1 as a deadline for his latest round of extension talks with the Ravens. If this is indeed a hard deadline, the Ravens are running out of time to avoid this situation dragging to a 2023 franchise tag.

The team is believed to have increased its offer to Jackson, Josina Anderson of CBS Sports tweets. Baltimore will not do a fully guaranteed deal, despite Cleveland’s Deshaun Watson agreement, Anderson adds. This has long been the expectation, even though Jackson has been connected to seeking a contract containing more than the whopping $230MM guaranteed the Browns gave Watson.

Since Watson’s March extension agreement, the Broncos and Cardinals have extended their passers on deals worth more — in terms of AAV — than Watson’s $46MM. But neither Russell Wilson nor Kyler Murray secured close to the guaranteed money Watson did. Teams are treating that Browns contract like an outlier, one dictated by unique circumstances. If the Ravens are going to sign Jackson this week, they will likely be forced to authorize an extension that includes more than the $124MM fully guaranteed Wilson received. Probably a lot more.

The Ravens have been negotiating with Jackson since the 2021 offseason, when he first became eligible for a new deal. Those 2021 talks are believed to have included an offer worth more than Josh Allen‘s $43MM-per-year accord. This year, the team has been connected to an offer that exceeds Murray’s $46.1MM AAV. Nothing has come out regarding guarantees, though a Jackson tweet revealed the team’s expected reluctance to offer a fully guaranteed contract.

Jackson, 25, continues to operate without an agent. That has complicated this lengthy process. The former MVP negotiated in-season with the Ravens in 2021. If he is truly prepared to shut down talks this year, the next few days represent a pivotal stretch.

The former Heisman winner could continue to bet on himself, taking the risk of either an injury or a decline in play — Jackson’s QBR figures have fallen from first (2019) to eighth (2020) to 17th (’21) — dropping his value. But another entirely plausible scenario exists in which Jackson’s price rises again in 2022. The salary cap will continue to climb, and the threat of an exclusive 2023 tag putting upwards of $40MM on Baltimore’s cap sheet — which would hinder the team in free agency — would apply more pressure on the organization.

Dak Prescott‘s season-ending ankle injury did not limit him in his 2021 negotiations with the Cowboys, which involved the threat of a second tag clogging Dallas’ payroll. The Ravens also have a history of a quarterback betting on himself and winning. Joe Flacco did not sign a Ravens extension in 2012, going on to put together a strong playoff run that led the team to its second Super Bowl championship. The Ravens made Flacco the league’s first $20MM-AAV player — via a six-year, $120.6MM deal — before free agency in 2013. Times have changed on the QB market, with Aaron Rodgers — who topped Flacco’s deal soon after it was agreed to nine years ago — topping the current market at $50.3MM per year.

Flacco’s Baltimore successor remains tied to his $23MM fifth-year option salary. Jackson’s age, importance to the Ravens, and the cap’s renewed growth raise the stakes for the team. The run-oriented QB joining Rodgers in the $50MM-per-year club should not be ruled out. Will the team go there this week?

With Week 1 quickly approaching, it is becoming less and less likely that an extension becomes finalized between the Ravens and quarterback Lamar Jackson before the latter’s self-imposed negotiating deadline. Recent remarks he made on social media hint at the type of contract the team has – or, more to the point, has not – offered him so far. 

Responding to a Twitter conversation stating that the Ravens had offered Jackson a fully guaranteed extension worth $250MM, the 25-year-old replied, “no they didn’t” (Twitter link). Such a deal would be in line with the unprecedented contract given to Deshaun Watson by the Browns, though that pact had a total value of $230MM.

Much has been made about Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti‘s comments made in the wake of that deal and the effect it was likely to have on future QB extensions. Indeed, it was reported last month that Jackson was seeking a second contract which was also guaranteed in full and, given his track record, higher in maximum value than Cleveland’s new signal-caller.

Two mega-deals have been signed at the position since the Browns’ acquisition of Watson: Kyler Murray‘s extension with the Cardinals (averaging $46.1MM per year) and, yesterday, the contract Russell Wilson signed which will keep him in Denver, presumably, for the remainder of his career ($49MM). Those extensions each include substantial guarantees, though they fall well short of the structure Watson’s deal is comprised of. As a result, the Ravens will no doubt point to the latter accord as the exception, rather than the rule, in the new QB market.

Baltimore was willing to match the annual value of Buffalo’s Josh Allen extension last offseason, which would have left Jackson on the books at an annual average of $43MM. A franchise tag would carry a similar cost if the team elects to use it next year, though doing so would have far different cap implications than an extension of the same value. How far the team is willing to go on the matter of guarantees – and the manner in which Jackson responds to those efforts – will be central to how this relationship proceeds.

We are in Lamar Jackson‘s 20th month of extension eligibility, and unless the Ravens can lock down their quarterback by Week 1, this saga will pass the two-year point. Jackson is not planning to negotiate in-season.

More information regarding terms has come out in this process. The Ravens are believed to have offered Jackson more than Kyler Murray is making, Jay Glazer of Fox Sports said during a TV appearance Sunday night (via Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio). The Cardinals gave Murray a five-year, $230.1MM extension in July.

While accepting this contract would make Jackson the NFL’s second-highest-paid passer, on average, Glazer added that Deshaun Watson‘s deal is complicating this process — one he deems an uphill battle for the Ravens. This marks the second report to link Watson’s outlier Browns contract, guarantee-wise, to the Ravens’ talks with Jackson. The former MVP was connected to pursuing a fully guaranteed deal surpassing Watson’s $230MM guarantee. Considering Watson’s full guarantee is nearly $130MM north of any other NFLer’s, Jackson trying to secure such terms obviously represents an issue in these complex negotiations.

The Ravens were believed to have offered a contract matching Josh Allen‘s $43MM-per-year pact during the sides’ 2021 negotiations, but the agent-less quarterback did not sign. It is unknown what the precise terms were in that proposal, beyond the AAV, just as it is unknown how the Ravens have structured their latest offer. But Murray, Watson and Aaron Rodgers have surpassed Patrick Mahomes‘ $45MM high-water AAV mark this offseason, raising the bar for Jackson. Baltimore’s three-time Pro Bowler, whose 2018 starter debut keyed a stretch that produced three straight playoff berths, targeting more than what Murray is making is unsurprising. With Rodgers’ $50.3MM figure — albeit on a shorter-term deal — more than $4MM north of Murray’s, a sizable gap for a potential Jackson deal exists.

If Jackson and the Ravens cannot agree on a deal by Week 1, the franchise tag scenario enters the equation. The team would have until the March 2023 deadline to tag Jackson. With the exclusive tag amount expected to come in north of $40MM for quarterbacks next year, that would represent a significant cap hold for the Ravens entering free agency. Dallas navigated around a tagged quarterback salary in 2020, extending Dak Prescott in 2021, but Washington did not, losing Kirk Cousins after two tagged seasons (2016-17).

Lamar Jackson‘s Ravens negotiations have not produced much in the way of prices, but the team looks to be prepared to pay the former MVP a top-market deal. Well, they were nearly there last year.

Patrick Mahomes‘ $45MM-per-year deal topped the quarterback market when the 2021 season ended, with Josh Allen‘s $43MM-AAV accord being second. During talks last year, the Ravens were prepared to hit the Allen threshold for Jackson, with Albert Breer of SI.com noting the team matched that AAV in a 2021 offer.

[RELATED: How Will Ravens’ Jackson Talks Conclude?]

It is not known how many years the Ravens proposed at the $43MM-per-year price or how the offer was structured, but Jackson did not budge. The Ravens were willing to concede Jackson was a $40MM-per-year QB during their 2021 negotiations, though the agent-less quarterback’s price has undoubtedly risen since. Aaron Rodgers, Kyler Murray and Deshaun Watson have since bumped Mahomes and Allen down, AAV-wise, to Nos. 4 and 5 among NFL earners.

Jackson, 25, has obviously been patient here. Despite being extension-eligible since January 2021, the three-time Pro Bowler is less than a month away from his fifth-year option season. Jackson has also set a firm Week 1 deadline for negotiating with the Ravens — something he did not do last year. This raises the stakes for Baltimore’s negotiations, which seem to have picked up in recent weeks. This process has gone from Ravens decision-makers admitting the quarterback did not seem interested in a deal to Jackson indicating he hopes a contract comes to pass before Week 1.

The dual-threat QB has also been connected to wanting Watson-level guarantees. While Jackson is not in as strong a position to command that historic structure ($230MM fully guaranteed — $120MM north of any other NFLer’s guarantees), Watson’s contract has worked his favor. Jackson forcing this issue to the 2023 March franchise tag deadline runs the risk of his value dropping, via another injury or a decline in performance, but it also could prompt the Ravens to apply an exclusive tag. An injury also may not damage Jackson’s value at all, given how the Cowboys’ negotiations with Dak Prescott played out. Staring at a second Prescott tag clogging their cap sheet, the Cowboys came in with a big offer just before a tag needed to be applied in 2021.

An exclusive Jackson tag in 2023 would be worth around $45MM, Breer adds. A second tag in this scenario would top $50MM in 2024. While the Browns are evidently prepared to have Watson on their 2023 cap sheet at $54.9MM, no team has gone into a season with a player tied to a $45MM cap hit. The Ravens using the exclusive tag, which prevents offer sheets coming in, next year would leave a monster Jackson cap hold on the team’s books and hurt the organization in terms of adding talent in free agency.

Much of the talk surrounding Lamar Jackson‘s ongoing negotiations with the Ravens has been based on speculation. Now, we’re hearing directly from the source. The quarterback told reporters today that he continues to negotiate a new deal with the Ravens, although he was clear that the two sides were “keeping [details] in-house.” When asked if he believed he’d ultimately agree to an extension, the quarterback expressed optimism about a deal.

[RELATED: Latest On Lamar Jackson Contract Talks]

“I think so. I think so. I think so. We’ll have to see,” Jackson said (via ESPN’s Jamison Hensley).

Jackson did tell reporters that he’s got a clear “cutoff” date for negotiations, so the Ravens are working against an unofficial deadline (whenever that may be, although Jackson was speaking to a question regarding Baltimore’s September 11 opener). ESPN’s Jeff Darlington tweets that we’ll get clarity on negotiations soon; either Jackson agrees to a new deal with the Ravens or he stops negotiations with a focus on the 2022 campaign. The 25-year-old is slated to earn $23MM in 2022 on the fifth-year option.

The former MVP is one of the few NFL players who doesn’t have an agent and represents himself. When asked if he thought about staging a “hold in” and avoiding on-field work during the first days of training camp, Jackson made it clear that he never considered the negotiating tactic.

“I want to win at the end of the day. I just want to be great,” Jackson said. “I just want to work with my brothers. I don’t want to leave them out there hanging. That’s not me. That’s never been me.”

At the very least, this is good news for Ravens fans, as there were some question marks surrounding Jackson’s desire to stay in Baltimore long-term. We heard earlier today that Jackson was interested in sticking around Baltimore and was discussing a new contract with the organization, although no agreement was imminent.

As ‘hold-in’ season begins around the league in some players’ cases, Lamar Jackson is taking part in training camp. The top storyline surrounding the team all offseason has been the lack of traction regarding an extension for the Ravens’ QB, but progress could be coming soon. 

Jackson’s arrival at camp sparked the latest round of questions related to his long-term future with the team. He is slated to earn $23MM in 2022 on the fifth-year option, but a deal similar to the ones given to Deshaun Watson and Kyler Murray this offseason has not been considered close to being finalized at any time.

To that point, Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Network confirms that nothing is currently “imminent” on the extension front, and that Jackson is still “in no rush” to sign a new deal. In the absence of an extension, the 25-year-old’s short-term future would consist of one or two seasons played out on franchise tags – the value of which, in 2023, would be roughly $47MM, right in line with the annual averages of Watson’s and Murray’s new contracts.

The fact that Jackson wasn’t the party most interested in discussing an extension in March cast doubt on his willingness to commit to the franchise over the long-term, something the front office has expressed a desire for on multiple occasions. The notion that the former MVP was focused solely on preparations for the upcoming season has been contradicted by, among other things, Jackson’s latest public remarks on the potential for a new pact to come to fruition before the campaign begins.

Wilson adds that Jackson remains “open and interested in a long-term deal with the Ravens.” His participation in camp is further evidence that any animosity between himself and GM Eric DeCosta has been minimal at worst (something which is particularly significant since the two have handled negotiations directly). With the door open to a deal being reached in the near future – apparently to a greater extent than at any other point this offseason – this situation remains a crucially important one for all sides involved.

While the news of one of the top extension-eligible QBs signing a new deal broke earlier today, there was an important update regarding one of the other signal-callers in that same category. Lamar Jackson reported early to Baltimore’s training camp, as the team confirmed on Twitter. 

The distinct absence of an extension has been a major talking point since the 2020 campaign ended, and increasingly so this offseason. The team has consistently shown a willingness to try and negotiate directly with the agent-less 25-year-old; Jackson’s hesitancy to reciprocate has led to plenty of speculation about his long-term future with the Ravens.

Other factors loom large as well, of course. The gap between Jackson’s statistical performance in his MVP-winning 2019 season and the subsequent pair of campaigns, coupled with his 2021 season-ending ankle injury have caused doubts to be raised about his value on a multi-year deal. With little progress being made throughout much of the time in which Jackson has been eligible for an extension, it has looked more and more likely that he will play out the 2022 season on the fifth-year option ($23MM).

In June, however, talks resumed between the two-time Pro Bowler and general manager Eric DeCosta during mandatory minicamp – which came after Jackson skipped OTAs for the first time in his career. Then, earlier this month, Jackson spoke publicly about his optimism of getting a deal finalized, potentially before training camp opens in full. The chances of that happening seem to remain slim, though.

Pro Football Network’s Aaron Wilson reports that “no deal is imminent” at this time. He does add, on the other hand, that talks are still ongoing. Jackson has been connected to Murray as a member of the next wave of QBs due for extensions in the vicinity of the ones given to Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, along with, more recently, Deshaun Watson‘s fully-guaranteed $230MM pact. The fact that Kyler Murray received a deal worth a fraction more than that total (and with $160MM in guarantees) will only lead to further belief that Jackson will end up in that range as well, regardless of when his deal gets finalized.