Ravens extend QB Lamar Jackson

[coordinator0]

 

Finally. We can breathe. 

[DreamKid]

4 minutes ago, wackywabbit said:

Lol, good joke. Even Jeff Z thought it was more likely not happening at some point.

Look at me, I'm the insider now.

Zrebiec is a moron who thought we were going to cut Tyus Bowser and Chuck Clark like 4 years ago. He has no special insight into the team. There was never any indication that Lamar was going to get a deal from any other team or that we were no longer interested in his services. 

This was all inevitable.

I remember seeing arguments about money, and if Lamar was worth the asking price but who in here actually thought Lamar was going elsewhere?... I legit can't think of anyone? Maybe I wasn't plugged in enough to the back and forth stuff, but it seemed like most assumed he would be back.

[coordinator0]

I'm greedy. This move should open up immediate cap space. Go get Hopkins now. 

[RavensfanRD]

Let's go, champ!

"And there will be hell to pay" - LJ8, probably

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

9 minutes ago, coordinator0 said:

I'm greedy. This move should open up immediate cap space. Go get Hopkins now. 

I have to believe this is happening.

[baltimoreRebel]

45 minutes ago, wackywabbit said:

Lol, good joke. Even Jeff Z thought it was more likely not happening at some point.

Look at me, I'm the insider now.

I was pretty standard that I wanted him back but if he whether he left or stayed, I just wanted a resolution. 

Glad it got done! 

[baltimoreRebel]

26 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

I have to believe this is happening.

If Hopkins happens tonight. I might just lose my entire mind. 

[AngusMcFife]

Kudos to the front office for staying patient, letting the process play out, and getting Lamar to sign at a reasonable price. 

[SalvadorsDeli]

EDC and the whole FO really played things perfectly this offseason. Didn't panic and held seemingly pretty firm on their position without allowing that to create acrimony with Lamar. I was extremely skeptical about going for the lower tag but they understood the market perfectly. I don't doubt that overpaying for Odell was a part of the larger negotiating strategy with Lamar but I think they rightly just thought it was worth it if it got us back on the path to bringing Lamar back. 

And kudos to Lamar as well, seems like contrary to a lot of the reports out there he was clearly willing to compromise and take something below the Watson line. Certainly an untraditional and at times messy approach to renegotiating a deal, but at the end of the day for as much he was pilloried for doing this without an agent, he just negotiated the richest deal in NFL history on his own. 

Shoutout to Howie Roseman as well, a real homie for getting that Hurts done when he did and setting up a blueprint for us. 

[diamondbull424]

2 hours ago, DreamKid said:

Zrebiec is a moron who thought we were going to cut Tyus Bowser and Chuck Clark like 4 years ago. He has no special insight into the team. There was never any indication that Lamar was going to get a deal from any other team or that we were no longer interested in his services. 

This was all inevitable.

I remember seeing arguments about money, and if Lamar was worth the asking price but who in here actually thought Lamar was going elsewhere?... I legit can't think of anyone? Maybe I wasn't plugged in enough to the back and forth stuff, but it seemed like most assumed he would be back.

I mean… you definitely weren’t involved in the back and forth stuff.

In both the Ravens forum Lamar thread as well as the one that got shutdown in NFL Gen, there was definitely mentions of Lamar being absolutely gone.

@wackywabbit got called out for basically being wrong too when the Lamar trade was made known.

So yeah IIRC some were even so bold so as to say they would eat crow if they were wrong.

 

 

In terms of the deal getting done, makes sense. Smart of the Ravens to get a deal done now and not risk a team getting desperate after the draft.

And smart of Lamar for getting a deal done now, better to not risk it and be left as the one standing after musical chairs.

[AngusMcFife]

A lot of players, coaches, and executives have sung the praises of Lamar Jackson these past 5 years. But when teams had a chance to offer Lamar a contract, it was crickets. It was hollow praise. 

Hopefully Lamar realizes these BSers were just blowing smoke up his *ss and will take it out on them for years to come. 

[diamondbull424]

Watching the interview and the presser last night my strong takeaway/perception from Lamar was that him resigning with the Ravens was never in question.

That he was holding up negotiations for three reasons:

1) Talent/Scheme-
He seemed incredibly excited by the offensive additions and the new offense. He was respectful of Roman as he always was, didn’t throw him under the bus, but really his energy over what he saw was hard to contain. You don’t joke around about 6k passing yards if you’re not excited.

2) Contractual Terms-

Lamar referenced the terms around the deal being something he “could work with.” So it’s clear that framework around guarantees and not just “OMG he turned down $200m guaranteed” were important to him and his mom.

The fact that the framework of the September deal and the one signed aren’t very much different, I feel it’s very likely that the assumptions I made regarding the September deal may hold some truth.

To rehash, I mentioned that if that September deal by the Ravens had a Kyler Murray type of structure to the guarantees, then it was a very Ravens friendly deal and not so much a Lamar friendly deal.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/arizona-cardinals/kyler-murray-29036
- Murray’s guarantees were largely incentivized around games played. What was guaranteed was mainly his early year roster salary which are going to be rookie year roster salaries, his signing bonus, his option bonus, and then just one big salary year in 2024.. but not even all of it.
- A post June 1 release of Murray would be the obvious out to that deal for the team, which could be a post June 1 release and they could save themselves the other 56% of the deal. Which at the current trajectory of that team seems likely if they can’t find someone willing to trade for him under the guise that they would only have to account for the other 56% of the deal for a QB with some talent.
- However if no one wants to account for that because they think they could get him for a greater bargain on the open market, then Murray could see himself with $130m in lost money, even if $60-$89m of that was “guaranteed”.
 

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/baltimore-ravens/lamar-jackson-25127/
Back to Lamar, considering the details of the new deal have been released, I think the Ravens certainly engaged in a lot of contract structures that we’ve never seen before with flat out void years.

They also were willing to provide Lamar with the highest APY which historically was not something they were willing to do.

Which both of those things definitely changed the calculus as to what a fair deal could look like, allowing Lamar the ability to “set the market” as well as keep the cap hits overall to a suitable range in the immediate future. When considering the void years, it’s a 7 year, $260m deal with a $37m APY, far more affordable for the team than the proposals I proposed earlier in the year.

Yet on the other hand, Lamar has both a no trade clause as well as a no franchise tag clause and the team while having the void years doesn’t have any control over Lamar in any capacity to limit his market after five years, giving him greater leverage in future contract extension negotiations.

This is a great deal on both sides, both sides did an excellent job in compromising their position, while not compromising their value.

3) NFLPA Cause
I think it’s clear to me that the Jalen Hurts deal was far less influential to the Lamar deal when one looks at the actual terms of both deals and the structure of the guaranteed moneys.

Thus it stands more to reason that what was the bigger influence in closing the negotiation gap was that Lamar wasn’t willing to die for a cause that no one else would die for.

Lamar seemed to be showing loyalty to the players cause in progressing the goal of guaranteed contracts, yet when he saw that he was fighting as a lone soldier he pivoted. I think it’s possible that Lamar was under the impression that he and all the other big name QBs would all be looking to target fully to mostly guaranteed deals, but Hurts not fighting for the cause showed him the futility of the non-unified position he was in… and thus he reverted back to his other loyalty… “the Ravens getting a SB outa him.”