Man is bout to get paid, but dumber than a box of rocks

Lamar is a good quarterback, but you can see why the Ravens have been reluctant to pay him.

he still misses open receivers downfield, and 2019 is still his best season by far --- and that was 3 years ago.

in 2019 he accounted for 43 touchdowns (in 15 games) --- 36 passing and 7 rushing

in 2022...thru 9 games...18 touchdowns --- 16 passing and 2 rushing

To be fair, without Bateman he probably has the worst WR group to throw to. Without Andrew's probably the worst overall pass catching group to throw to.
K. Drake wouldn't run for more than 50 yards on any average offense.

So Lamar gives a team the ability to forgo a WR1/2 and a RB1 contract. That is big savings that can lead to a more elite defense. Only issue is Lamar's health.

pay him the 50 million a year and he won't be good enough to overcome the roster they are left with

can't wait

MookieBlaylock said:

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pay him the 50 million a year and he won't be good enough to overcome the roster they are left with

can't wait

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Agreed. You better hit on a lot of draft picks

After the Watson and Russell Wilson trades I think teams are going to give pause to handing out the 9 figure guaranteed mega contracts. Being a former MVP doesn't guarantee that's the best use of that kind of money. A GM would have to consider franchising is a smarter decision in the short term so they don't have a $150MM albatross around their neck. Even though that team could win the division they still have a lot of issues that require attention. They just traded for Roquan Smith who's going to be getting a nice fat raise as well. I understand it's worse to just not have a real QB on the roster but their contracts make everything more difficult when it comes to building out the rest of the team. They need WR help, to me that's where OBJ makes a ton of sense to go if he's healthy.

Nope teams are going to pay huge for QB's- they just need to be good enough to overcome the hefty price tag

Burrow
Herbert
YES

Hurts
No

Where does Tanny fit on your matrix?

carl spacklers hat said:

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Where does Tanny fit on your matrix?

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15 to 25 million range

Same with Hurts cousins Dak Wilson etc

Disagree Tanny is a very good NFL QB in the third tier alongside Dak
Dak is way overpaid

W said:

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Lamar is a good quarterback, but you can see why the Ravens have been reluctant to pay him.

he still misses open receivers downfield, and 2019 is still his best season by far --- and that was 3 years ago.

in 2019 he accounted for 43 touchdowns (in 15 games) --- 36 passing and 7 rushing

in 2022...thru 9 games...18 touchdowns --- 16 passing and 2 rushing

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going back to this thread...

Lamar is making the decision tough for the Ravens.

he finished the 2022 season...with 12 games played...17 passing TD's and 3 rushing TD's

nowhere close to his 2019 MVP season --- 3 years in the past

When Lamar plays they win. When he's out they don't.

So let him walk and try a 3-5 year rebuild around a traditional QB, or pay him and win when he isn't hurt (which is a lot the last few years)

There are always about 4 or 5 guys in the league that make it easy on their teams. Current generation includes Josh Allen, Mahomes, Herbert, Burrow. No brainers.

Then there are about 5 or 10 more that really make or break a team. Lamar, Dak, Cousins, Murray... those guys are good NFL QBs... sometimes they are great. You'd be a fool to let them walk because you might spend 10-20 years trying to find your next franchise QB. But they really screw your salary cap.

You gotta pay them and hope you can get a reasonable deal. Unless I'm forgetting someone, it took Buffalo 2 decades to find a QB after Jim Kelly. Chicago, Washington, Detroit, etc... QB hell is the worst place to be.

jr15aggie said:

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There are always about 4 or 5 guys in the league that make it easy on their teams. Current generation includes Josh Allen, Mahomes, Herbert, Burrow. No brainers.

Then there are about 5 or 10 more that really make or break a team. Lamar, Dak, Cousins, Murray... those guys are good NFL QBs... sometimes they are great. You'd be a fool to let them walk because you might spend 10-20 years trying to find your next franchise QB. But they really screw your salary cap.

You gotta pay them and hope you can get a reasonable deal. Unless I'm forgetting someone, it took Buffalo 2 decades to find a QB after Jim Kelly. Chicago, Washington, Detroit, etc... QB hell is the worst place to be.

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Look at it the other way. You overpay a good but not great QB, you now set your team back years. Welcome to salary cap hell. Plus, he wants a fully guaranteed deal

You aren't wrong on that either. It's a real conundrum right now with QBs, and on a lesser but still significant front with CB, & DE's and OT's.

Do you sign up for salary cap hell or do you let your best players at key positions walk and hope you can draft a decent replacement.

it's kind of the Andy Dalton / Derek Carr dilemma.

where a team has a good QB or solid QB...such that they pass on Mahomes or Josh Allen in the draft because they already "have their guy under center"

whoops

Edit to my post above... started looking up some teams history and forgot Detroit had Stafford for years, they are just a terrible organization!

Chicago had Cutler and he probably counts as a "good" franchise QB. But Washington's been in rough shape at QB for 2+ decades with their only glimpse of QB success coming from 1.5 seasons of RGIII and a couple with Kirk Cousins before deciding he was too "meh" for their liking.

Miami's only ray of light since Dan Marino was Tannehill who is more of a Top 15 QB.

And Dear Lord, don't even look at Cleveland since the Bernie Kosar days!

Point is... it's why, as a Cowboys fan, I'm nowhere close to being done with Dak even though he's had some rough moments last 2 years. And if I were a Ravens fan I wouldn't be ready to part with Lamar either.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/02/24/lamar-jacksons-camp-leaks-some-information-to-stephen-a-smith/

Looks like this one is going to get ugly fast, Jackson's camp leaking info trying to get more public sentiment but wow. You can tell Jackson doesn't have an agent, because you can't leak info that NO ONE will believe, like saying he's never wanted a fully guaranteed contract. It's just counter productive at this point.

So under the assumption that the Ravens aren't going to sign him long term, does anyone think there's a team out there that 1) wants to sign him to a fully guaranteed contract and 2) even if they could has the capital set aside to be able to do a fully guaranteed contract (for those that don't know, all guaranteed money for a contract has to be set into a controlled escrow account when the contract is signed).

Yes teams make 300 million each year from TV

The league is the billionaires boy club were they have Yacht and QB pissing contests

Throw in the cap going up and 45 million isn't is the new normal

what adds to the intrigue here...

is that the Ravens are generally considered a top 5 -- no worse than top 10 -- franchise in the league. Among the smartest and best run franchises.

so when other teams see Baltimore waffling on Lamar...that is pause for concern.

why aren't the Ravens jumping all-in with him? a la the Cardinals and Murray

bc they are negotiating

If Baltimore loses Lamar they will plummet to the bottom of the AFC north with Pitts

MookieBlaylock said:

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Yes teams make 300 million each year from TV

The league is the billionaires boy club were they have Yacht and QB pissing contests

Throw in the cap going up and 45 million isn't is the new normal

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LOL, I'm not sitting here trying to defend anyone, but the notion that the uber rich just have 300 million sitting around in liquid cash assets is extremely rare, they get all their **** on credit and loans. Even the ones that might have that, don't want to then tie it up in an escrow account they can never touch. And as a business, that is even more difficult since while they make 300 to 500 million in revenue, the Raven's operating income is closer to 100 million (and also 2 years after having a negative income). So you have to move around a lot of assets to take out 300 million in profits to immediately dedicate to one employ.

But that's the point I'm trying to make here, and the reason the owners hate the Browns for that contract, is that (from what I understand) the way the NFL is designed, if you sign someone to a fully guaranteed contract you have to put up all the cash up front into an account that you no longer have complete control over. Doing that for a Mahomes would be hard, let alone for a QB that has gotten injured multiple times recently.

So, do I think they can do it? Probably yes, but I don't know how the profits are paid out. So the logistics to pull something like this off is a lot more difficult than people realize with a regular contract.

The Ravens are not cash strapped and had a way underpaid QB for the last 4 years

Guess what the ride is over
You can hate Joe Burrow for this

WTF trading for Lamar? Gonna find out real quick about pubic bienemy skills

MookieBlaylock said:

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WTF trading for Lamar? Gonna find out real quick about pubic bienemy skills

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Careful when pulling that hook out of your lip.

Baltimore with the non-exclusive tag on Lamar. I think it's a smart move on their part if they're at an impasse with Jackson. Since Jackson doesn't have an agent there's no teams out there that can try to make headway with him/ask what he wants due to tampering, this allows other teams to interact with him, find out what he wants, and make offers. If Baltimore doesn't match they get 2 first round picks. If a team offers what Baltimore isn't comfortable with paying then they can match, and then engage the other team to try and get more than 2 first round picks if they actually want to move on.

The Watson contract is going to be a sticking point for all these QB contracts going forward, they're all going to want the Watson fully guaranteed contract. The problem with using the Watson contract as a benchmark is that it's not just about Watson's true market value. The contract that Watson signed is partly because that's what it took for him to agree to go to Cleveland, he didn't want to go there. He told them they were out and they came back to the table and asked what it would take to go there. A player that is happy with their team shouldn't be looking at his contract as a true goal, it's not the same. It's also astronomically out of whack with the other QB contracts. It's a lot more realistic for him to look at Josh Allen's contract that has $150MM in guarantees out of $258MM instead of $230MM fully guaranteed.

If Jackson wants to really test his power what he should do IMO is to sign a contract that is reasonable for a player of his caliber but ask for an opt-out like they have in the NBA and MLB. I don't know if an opt-out would violate the CBA or not, but if it doesn't it would allow a high level player to renegotiate at a later date, just like the biggest names in MLB and the NBA are able to do. If NFL players are able to get opt-out clauses it would completely change the NFL.

good move by the Ravens

Lamar needs to stay healthy and show that 2019 was not a fluke

Max Power said:

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Baltimore with the non-exclusive tag on Lamar. I think it's a smart move on their part if they're at an impasse with Jackson. Since Jackson doesn't have an agent there's no teams out there that can try to make headway with him/ask what he wants due to tampering, this allows other teams to interact with him, find out what he wants, and make offers. If Baltimore doesn't match they get 2 first round picks. If a team offers what Baltimore isn't comfortable with paying then they can match, and then engage the other team to try and get more than 2 first round picks if they actually want to move on.

The Watson contract is going to be a sticking point for all these QB contracts going forward, they're all going to want the Watson fully guaranteed contract. The problem with using the Watson contract as a benchmark is that it's not just about Watson's true market value. The contract that Watson signed is partly because that's what it took for him to agree to go to Cleveland, he didn't want to go there. He told them they were out and they came back to the table and asked what it would take to go there. A player that is happy with their team shouldn't be looking at his contract as a true goal, it's not the same. It's also astronomically out of whack with the other QB contracts. It's a lot more realistic for him to look at Josh Allen's contract that has $150MM in guarantees out of $258MM instead of $230MM fully guaranteed.

If Jackson wants to really test his power what he should do IMO is to sign a contract that is reasonable for a player of his caliber but ask for an opt-out like they have in the NBA and MLB. I don't know if an opt-out would violate the CBA or not, but if it doesn't it would allow a high level player to renegotiate at a later date, just like the biggest names in MLB and the NBA are able to do. If NFL players are able to get opt-out clauses it would completely change the NFL.

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The part about cleveland being desperate is something that everyone seems to forget about when talking about potential landing spots for Lamar. NFL network was listing out the teams that would potentially be players for Lamar, and they listed out every team that was in it for Watson. But, Atlanta has already publicly said they aren't pursuing him, mainly because I doubt they would have wanted Watson for the contract the Browns gave him, let alone Lamar. A fully guaranteed contract not only costs a lot, but it's going to create cap hell for that team. The only team they mentioned that I could potentially agree with is the Commanders, mainly because they really need a QB and Dan Snyder might do that deal as a big **** you to the NFL.

W said:

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good move by the Ravens

Lamar needs to stay healthy and show that 2019 was not a fluke

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Another plus side is if no one attempts to get him the Ravens can show him (and they're players) that they're not the only team that doesn't want to pay 40-50 million guaranteed every year.

they apparently are okay paying him 40+ a year, just not as many years as jackson wants. i don't think anyone is going to give him the fully guaranteed deal. owners aren't ready to make that the norm. when joe burrow then trevor lawrence come to free agency, I think it starts to become the norm for elite QBs.

BMX Bandit said:

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they apparently are okay paying him 40+ a year, just not as many years as jackson wants. i don't think anyone is going to give him the fully guaranteed deal. owners aren't ready to make that the norm. when joe burrow then trevor lawrence come to free agency, I think it starts to become the norm for elite QBs.

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Yeah, the Ravens just want to come to a guaranteed number to put into a contract like 6 years, 200 million with 120 million guaranteed, which an agent would help Lamar get. Even if they killed the contract after 3 years, Lamar would get his guaranteed money the Ravens get cap flexibility to move around the guaranteed money to sign other players. Lamar wants a fully guaranteed contract like Watson, which would mean the money is dead on the salary cap so you can't do any movement, so $40 million guaranteed for 3 years would have 40 million as a dead number on the cap (and almost 1/4 of your total cap hit) for those 3 years with no way to break it up or move it around to sign other players. Plus with a fully guaranteed contract, the ownership would have to put everything into an escrow account up front (meaning you would have to liquidate a chunk of cash and have it not making you any money during that time), whereas a 6 year contract with the same amount guaranteed doesn't require that.

Overall this just shows why there are agents for this game and why they are needed. It's like being a lawyer vs representing yourself, you just need someone who can discuss the pros and cons without it being personal. The only owner who I think is willing (and who ultimately will give) Lamar a fully guaranteed contract is Dan Snyder, and only because he would just want to screw over the league on his way out.

6 years/200M???? Zero chance he'd take that

Lake08 said:

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6 years/200M???? Zero chance he'd take that

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Sorry, I was only showing the difference between a fully guaranteed and guaranteed money in a longer contract, so I was just throwing out a random number there, no clue what the team is offering. We usually know because of the agent releasing things to put pressure, but without one it's very black box on what the actual numbers are.