And the side-by-side of his deal and the deal Jalen Hurts did bears that out, with the caveat that Hurts’s deal was an extension (and folded $1.43 million in cash due for 2023 in with five new years), whereas Jackson’s deal was done from scratch (almost without regard for the franchise tag total).
• The first three years (over $106 million) in Hurts’s deal are fully guaranteed now, as are the first three years of Lamar Jackson’s deal ($156 million). That takes both through 2025.
• Jackson’s getting $52 million in 2026, and $29 million of that will become fully guaranteed in March ’25. Likewise, Hurts is due $51 million in ’26, and nearly $50 million of it will be fully guaranteed by March ’25.
• Jackson’s money for 2027 doesn’t vest early. A piece of Hurts’s money for ’27 does: $22 million of the $51 million in cash he’s owed that year. Conversely, in the four years leading up to ’27, Jackson will have made $208 million, while Hurts will have earned $157.3 million (excluding escalators) at that point.
• Jackson has a freeway to free agency after 2027, with no-tag and no-trade clauses. Hurts is signed through ’28 and has a no-trade clause, but not a no-tag clause. So where Hurts’s guarantees last a year longer than Jackson’s, Jackson is up (without restriction) a year earlier.
• Jackson had more leverage than Hurts, with his contract having expired, his career earnings at nearly $33 million and a $32.42 million tag to play on, had negotiations failed again. Hurts was under contract for 2023, with about $4.59 million in career earnings, and a low number in front of him on his rookie contract for this fall.
If all the numbers haven’t made your eyes glaze over yet, here’s the overarching point: Jackson wound up doing a deal that’s part of the quarterback-contract assembly line. Kyler Murray’s deal was a tick up from Josh Allen’s deal. Russell Wilson’s was a tick up from Murray’s. Hurts’s was a tick up from Wilson’s, and now Jackson’s is a tick up from Hurts’s.
So on one hand, the Ravens did win. Their offer last season was a five-year extension through 2027 that had $133 fully guaranteed at signing, a $175 million injury guarantee and another $25 million on top of that in ’26 that will vest in early ’25. The full guarantee ($135 million) and injury guarantee ($185 million) on the deal he just did are better, but not by a ton. And there are nonguaranteed years (de facto team options) at the end.
On the other hand, Jackson did walk away with wins. One of his counterproposals was a fully guaranteed, three-year, $156 million deal. The cashflow on the first three years of his deal? One-hundred-and-fifty-six million, with $135 million fully guaranteed, and the rest guaranteed next March. And, really, that leads you in the important parts of the deal.
The cash flow here—$80 million through one year, $112.5 million through two, $156 million through three, $208 million through four and a $260 million total over five—is really strong. There also isn’t a great exit ramp on this deal for the team in its final year. Cutting Jackson after two years would mean (minus offsets) paying him $156 million ($78 million per year). Doing it after three years would mean paying him $185 million (nearly $62 million per).
Which, in the end, illustrates why Jackson had to do this—with the leverage that teams have over quarterbacks in the negotiations, and knowing that the quarterbacks really are the only ones with the leverage to change the way NFL contracts are written (by setting precedents on guaranteed money). If you’re Jackson, principles aside, you can say no to this sort of money only so many times before the time comes to just take the bag.
And I say that with the full acknowledgement that Jackson even taking it this far showed a lot of guts and a good bit of discipline, too.
This one was in response to a question on the Ravens’ adding Zay Flowers and Odell Beckham Jr. to their arsenal, which was met with a laugh from the quarterback.
“I want to throw for like 6,000 yards with the weapons we have,” Jackson said. “I'm not an individual-award-type guy or a stat watcher. I just want to do that because no one has ever done it and I feel like we have the weapons to do it.”
Based on Jackson’s strengths, and the Ravens’ run game’s strength, I don’t see that happening. That said, John Harbaugh clearly didn’t hire Todd Monken from Georgia simply to take what Greg Roman built for Jackson over the last four years and create the next iteration of it.
Monken’s last year as a play-caller in the NFL was with the Buccaneers in 2018. That year, Tampa Bay, with Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick as its signal-callers, led the NFL with 5,358 passing yards. The Bucs were fourth in pass attempts (625), while ranking in the bottom third of the league in rushing attempts (389), with the third-worst yards-per-rush average in the NFL. And at traditionally run-heavy Georgia, Monken revolutionized the Bulldogs’ passing game: Last year, Monken’s unit was ranked top 20 nationally in pass attempts. (They were also top 20 in rush attempts, which speaks to how good the team was in ’22.)
Now, Monken is well-respected in football circles for his creativity, and with move-around pieces such as Flowers, Beckham, Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely, he has the components to unlock the potential of Baltimore’s improved personnel. And because of that creativity, you’ll see Monken’s flexibility to work with what he has (which is to say he won’t be shoving square pegs into round holes).
Still, if you add it up, with the knowledge that Jackson’s been talking to Monken and has the playbook, it’s easy to see where the quarterback’s words may have been a little more than an off-hand comment in a news conference. Even if 6,000 yards isn’t happening.
