Lamar Jackson will stay a Raven, after all. After a months-long saga, which included failed negotiations, a franchise tag, and a trade request, Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens have agreed to a five-year contract.
According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the deal is worth $260 million and comes with $185 million in guaranteed money. It makes Jackson the highest-paid player in NFL history in terms of annual salary at $52 million per year.
Jackson’s new contract was a long time in the making. The two sides failed to agree to an extension before the 2022 NFL season started, setting up the former NFL MVP to become a free agent this offseason. The main issue, according to reports, was that Jackson wanted a fully guaranteed deal that would match the one Deshaun Watson got from the Cleveland Browns (five years, $230 million).
The Ravens were not ready to give Jackson that type of deal and ended up placing a non-exclusive franchise tag on him. This move allowed the player to negotiate with other teams while giving Baltimore a chance to match any deal he signed. Not long after being tagged, Jackson revealed that he requested a trade.
However, Jackson failed to have the market that he expected, largely because most NFL teams didn’t want to go through the trouble of negotiating the deal only to see the Ravens match it. There were also concerns about the 26-year-olds durability, considering his past two seasons ended prematurely due to injuries.
It turned out that both the Ravens and Jackson were each other’s best option, which was the thing that probably prompted both sides to make some compromises and get a new deal done.
“I feel that way sometimes with family; things can get tough … and there was definitely some emotion,” said Ravens’ general manager Eric DeCosta. “But in the end, we’ve been blessed to have Lamar as part of this organization for a long time. I think he feels this place is special, too. And it was business; it wasn’t personal.”
