The Sunday Punch Podcast

While there have been varying accounts of what has occurred between Jackson and the Ravens over the expanse of their contract talks, two realities do not appear to be in dispute: Watson’s deal with the Browns has weighed heavily on the negotiations between Baltimore and its franchise quarterback; and that the lack of an experienced agent between the two parties has led to some predictable hurdles along the way.

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While there have been varying accounts of what has occurred between Jackson and the Ravens over the expanse of their contract talks, two realities do not appear to be in dispute: That Watson’s deal with the Browns has weighed heavily on the negotiations between Baltimore and its franchise quarterback; and that the lack of an experienced agent between the two parties has led to some predictable hurdles along the way.

Watson’s deal with the Browns was an outlier like nothing the league had seen, shattering norms in guarantees and structure. It's an absurd outlier from a desperate franchise.

In September, the Ravens reportedly had advanced a $250 million deal with $133 million guaranteed, it would already be seen as a potentially insurmountable hurdle.

At that point, the nuance would have been in the negotiating details. Can we cut off a year from the deal so he gets to free agency sooner? Can we get a no franchise tag and a no transition tag [clause]? We’re talking about mechanisms that allow him to make even more money and get to the market soon again. . … But when it comes to how Lamar valued himself. A player values himself a certain way and sometimes that’s the only way he can see. that’s what he’s being blinded by. Lamar doesn’t want other people’s opinions or perspectives on his value. He has made that clear for five years.”

The difference between $250 million guaranteed and $133 million guaranteed is a wide enough margin that it’s unlikely to be overcome. This is where having an agent would have come in huge instead of being uneducated and having yourself and your mom represent you Lamar

at the NFL scouting combine agents meet with teams and talk with ones that need a quarterback a they’d say ‘OK, what do we have to do? I’m all ears. Yes, we want him. Now what do we have to do?’ All this stuff is back-channel deals getting done by people who know how to do it.

"You’d start with an overall group that is interested in Lamar, then that group gets smaller because some don’t want to do the contract, some don’t want to give up the trade compensation, and some the player doesn’t want to live in a certain place or play for a certain team. By the end of it, you have a smaller group that you know you can get something done with.

Some agents have the owners on speed dial, or that go to the owners' meetings, or have dinners with these owners in their private clubs, or that have sat with them on their yachts. There’s only a few agents that have the rep to sit with them and talk about the type of human being and player they are getting in these kinds of deals. You need an agent who can convey that [to an owner] in a situation like this.”

Now let’s get into the racism element of this since that’s the narrative that’s going around - there is non, deshaun watson proved that last year. Here’s the problem for Lamar and I wouldve done the same thing if I was the ravens- the non-exclusive tag : the player can sign only one offer sheet, but sometimes there are situations where teams won’t extend any contract simply out of the belief that it’s going to be matched.

it’s extremely difficult to get a club to give me an offer sheet as a non-exclusive franchise player because it becomes extremely public. Secondly, teams convince themselves that the Ravens would just match it and they don’t want to do the work for another team. And then thirdly, the team that signs the offer sheet has it count against their salary cap for the week [during the period of time when the Ravens can decide whether to match it]. Some teams just don’t want to do that.”

Some of these teams, Atlanta and Miami and some others, they have to say publicly that they’re not interested,” one agent said of franchises preemptively removing themselves from interest in Jackson. “They have to say it. If you’re Miami and you think Lamar is an upgrade, you can’t go after him publicly and sign him to an offer sheet and then when the Ravens match it, turn around and say, ‘Hey, Tua [Tagovailoa], we really love you

Lamar Jackson has missed one third of his games in the last two years. And he is a player where the indication has been very clear that he’s expecting the biggest contract in NFL history and for it to be fully guaranteed. That expectation takes your fraternity of 31 owners down to maybe none. It’s not easy to pay $250 million to a quarterback that’s been hurt. It’s not easy to pay it to one that’s never been hurt. If he gets hurt, that kind of salary is a franchise-killer for most teams. That’s the argument that goes on behind closed doors. Does that make it collusion? No. And oh, by the way, you have to give up two first-round picks just for the right to spend that money.

think about the two quarterbacks that did. When Watson got his, there were four teams involved and ultimately Cleveland did the fully guaranteed deal after they were told they were out of the running. That means out of four teams that were all coming to the table with offers, only the Browns were willing to give Deshaun a fully guaranteed deal, and they only did it after they were told that they were out of it. The Browns believed that the fully guaranteed deal was their only option to getting him. And that was on top of Deshaun having the control of a no-trade clause and having sat out an entire year of football. Think about all of those factors that had to go into that one situation.

"Then in the other, with Kirk Cousins, he played through two franchise tags to get to free agency to get his fully guaranteed deal from the Vikings, and he only did a three-year deal for less money than the New York Jets would have given him. So in the history of quarterbacks, the only two that got fully guaranteed deals either had a massive amount of leverage or played through two tags to get to free agency.

"Lamar doesn’t have the leverage of Watson and hasn’t played through two tags like Cousins. He’s under a franchise tag and hasn’t shown he will force a trade. So where’s the leverage to get a fully guaranteed deal?

Unless a massive and somehow unmatchable offer sheet is extended for Jackson, he will have to contemplate playing out the 2023 season under the $32.4 million tag. If that’s the case,, here are the options:

You can either fight for a fully guaranteed contract, or he can fight for it and settle on a contract that is practically guaranteed. Let’s just say it’s a four-year deal for $200 million. For the sake of making the math easy, let’s just say the salary is 50, 50, 50, 50 over the four years. The first $50 million will be fully guaranteed at signing. The second $50 million will also be fully guaranteed at signing. The third $50 million will be guaranteed for injury at signing, but convert to fully guaranteed in the waiver system at the beginning of Year 2. So, if they cut you after one year, you walk with $100 million. If they cut you after two years, you walk with $150 million. In other words, they aren’t cutting you. That’s a practically guaranteed deal.”

the first option he will have to compromise and say ‘We don’t need five years fully guaranteed. We get your issues with it. He’s had injury history. Give us the three years fully guaranteed deal that Kirk Cousins got [in 2018] at $50 million per year and we’re done. Three years for $150 million fully guaranteed. You want to hedge your risk, we’re willing to gamble on ourselves.”

The ravens are in the driers seat here and since Lamar doesn’t have an agent he’s probably wondering how he got the kiddie seat in the back