Lamar Jackson Remains Very Available, and It’s Very Weird

Tantalizing, no? A quarterback of Jackson’s youth and talent seldom hits the open market, and it isn’t hard to find franchises that wouldn’t be instantly upgraded. If you watch a lot of terrible NFL football, like I do, you can see the need. At least half of the league would be immediately better off with Jackson. Probably more than half. There are a lot of telephone poles with helmets. 

In the abstract, Jackson’s availability should provoke a frenzy, or at least a solid flurry of interest, but to date, it has been nothing but an orchestra of crickets. Check that, it has been more than crickets: It’s also been the unsolicited bleating of NFL clubs announcing they have no intention of signing Jackson—this usually clandestine collection of football clubs, suddenly turning into chatty chapters of Oversharers Anonymous.

Our quarterback situation is set.

We like who we have.

Jackson gets injured too much.

We can’t give him what he wants.

We’re the New York Jets and we’re about to risk it all on Aaron Rodgers, who may decide he wants to become a paddleboard yoga instructor. 

Jackson’s situation is weird, adversarial, and complicated. Naturally, it’s about the money. As always, we can also blame the Cleveland Browns. 

So let’s get into it. Jackson is rightfully on the lookout for a spectacular deal—this is what a top-tier NFL free agent is supposed to do, set the market with a new contract ceiling. Jackson and the Ravens have failed to reach an agreement; the quarterback is said to have rejected an offer that included at least $133 million in guaranteed money before the start of last season. Jackson appears to have reached his limit: He said he requested a trade from Baltimore on March 2. 

Publicly, the Ravens say they want Jackson back; if no other team makes Jackson an offer and Baltimore fails to reach a deal, that “nonexclusive” franchise tag would give Jackson $32.4 million to play for one year.

“I’m excited, thinking about Lamar all the time,” head coach John Harbaugh said just days ago. “Thinking about him as our quarterback. We’re building our offense around that idea.”

Messing with all of this—yup—are those Cleveland Browns, who last year broke from NFL tradition and awarded a spectacular, fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract to Deshaun Watson, the former Houston quarterback then settling a raft of sexual misconduct lawsuits and on the verge of an 11-game NFL suspension.

It was a massive deal without precedent. NFL owners enjoy guaranteed contracts like they enjoy flying middle seat economy; unlike other major sports, they have mostly avoided the practice. Here Cleveland was giving it to a scandalized player who’d missed an entire year.

Jackson is under no such personal cloud, and his statistics are superior to Watson’s; hence his reported expectation he should be rewarded in similarly guaranteed, if not better, fashion. Instead, franchises appear to be treating the Browns-Watson deal as an outlier, a case of Cleveland Being Cleveland. 

Then there is this: Jackson is representing himself, without the services of an agent. This isn’t unheard of, but it’s thrown confusion into the process, as there is no hired representative taking stock of the market and negotiating on Jackson’s behalf. There is Jackson himself, Jackson’s occasional commentary on social media, and, according to a recent missive the NFL sent teams, an uncertified associate named Ken Francis who was inappropriately contacting teams. (Jackson denied that this was happening.)

The bottom line is that, with the NFL draft coming on April 27, Jackson doesn’t know where he will be playing in the 2023 season. He is at an impasse with the Ravens, and he doesn’t seem to be on the verge of a competing offer. 

Into the vacuum has come a hot blast of criticism and second-guessing: That he’s asking for too much money; that he’s injured too often (Jackson missed significant time in both the 2022 and 2021 seasons); that his throwing-running double threat lends itself to future injuries; that NFL teams are better off drafting quarterback talent, since a rookie can be signed to a cheaper deal that gives the franchise more financial mobility.

It’s all starting to take on a whiff of gossipy groupthink, the way NFL teams suddenly appear to collectively decide a college player isn’t tall enough or is addled by tiny, tiny hands. It’s got the NFL Players Association on alert about possible coordination. Football clubs will do nearly anything to get an edge. Jackson may be very expensive, but he’s an undeniable edge. 

I think it’s perfectly legitimate for a player of Jackson’s caliber to try to leverage a guaranteed deal; if a player like him can’t push the boundary, who can? I also think it’s fair to wonder if Jackson could improve his position with a hired agent, if only to stimulate fresh conversations with front offices. I think Jackson can still be the most electric quarterback in the NFL—he’s still quite capable of the jaw-dropping highlight—but the injury worries are fair. I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that when the season begins in September, Jackson may find himself again in Ravens purple.

Or holding out.

Again: It is weird, it’s adversarial, and it’s complicated, and we can pin at least a little bit of this madness on the Cleveland Browns. Lamar Jackson is one of the best players in the NFL, and remains very available. 

Write to Jason Gay at [email protected]