Ian Rapoport Lays Out Possible Reason for Delay in Lamar Jackson’s New Contract

The NFL insider shares one possible reason that Jackson is slow-rolling his first major new contract as a pro.

Lamar Jackson has accomplished an incredible amount at just 25 years old, with an MVP award, All-Pro selection, two Pro Bowls and a number of league records to his name. Even so, Jackson is set to play on his $23 million fifth-year option in 2022, a rarity for an elite quarterback who has established himself so firmly in his first few NFL seasons.

Jackson’s deal has been a source of intrigue for years now, especially after he won the league's MVP award in 2019. It stands to reason that when he does sign a new deal, it could be worth well over $40 million per year, putting him in the ballpark of players like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Dak Prescott, young star quarterbacks who have signed new contracts in recent years.

“We will work at Lamar's urgency,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said this week, when asked about the status of negotiations with Jackson, who does not have an agent. “He and I have had ongoing discussions. We've talked fairly recently as well. He knows how to find me, I know how to find him.”

NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport weighed in on the unique situation with Jackson after DeCosta's comments. He said that it doesn't sound like Jackson is in any rush to work out a new deal, even with hundreds of millions of dollars potentially on the table.

Could #Ravens QB Lamar Jackson play out his contract all the way? It is a discussion worth having. pic.twitter.com/7iQAxNBObH

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 3, 2022

“Essentially what DeCosta said is, ‘We are ready when Lamar Jackson is.’ They're going to go at his pace,” Rapoport said. “What is interesting to me, just judging the view of the thing, the entire landscape, it doesn't seem like Lamar Jackson, from my information, is in any rush at all.”

Rapoport speculates that Jackson could be running a playbook similar to the one used by Kirk Cousins with Washington and Dak Prescott with Dallas. Both players wound up being franchise tagged—usually viewed as a negative by players seeking the protection that long deals with guaranteed money can afford—and used their leverage to eventually sign top-of-market contracts.

“We have seen players—Kirk Cousins is one, Dak Prescott is another—use the franchise tag and the sort of shoulder shrug of, ‘Maybe I'm not quite ready to do a deal yet,’ to use it as a weapon to maximize their contract leverage,” Rapoport said. “Dak used it to get tagged, and would eventually get tagged again and get a massive new deal. Kirk Cousins got free and got a fully guaranteed monster contract. Potentially, that would be something that would be down the road for Lamar Jackson if he continues to step back and go, ‘Meh. Contract? Maybe not right now.’”

Cousins spent 2012–17 with Washington, playing on the franchise tag in both 2016 and ’17, before landing a huge deal with Minnesota. Prescott was franchise tagged in 2020, and despite a season-ending injury that year, secured a huge four-year, $160 million deal from the Cowboys ahead of 2021.

That second example may be more akin to what Jackson is looking at, given the success that the Ravens have had in crafting an offense around his unique talents as a dual-threat player.

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