the Ravens were very quiet about their frustration that
Lamar Jackson, who is not represented by an agent, would
not engage them and talks Chris on a long-term deal. Last week.
We heard from Ravens GM, Eric, Dacosta who
said, at the combine
words to the effect that there waiting for him. We will work
at Lamar's urgency toward getting a long-term deal in
place
and
Remember Week 1 of last year, Chef T reported that Lamar is
too immersed in football to negotiate, his contract. Well,
that's all the more reason to have an agent. As we've said
before, if you're too busy to take care
of the things, you have to take care of around the house.
You hire someone
to take care of those things. That's why people are out there
to provide those services, so you can focus on things that
are a bigger priority
to you period beyond that, though,
beyond that.
The decision to not engage the Ravens.
Now, this is either a mistake or Jackson is cracking
the code, and the codes already been cracked by Kirk Cousins.
But Jackson may be deliberately holding off the Ravens, because
he wants to go five years on his rookie deal. Make 23
million this year,
for his fifth year option based upon his achievement so far in
his career. It's now it's now based on Pro bowls and other
Awards and whatnot to determine how much you get in your fifth
year option. So he's
More than any other quarterback, 23 million
for his fifth year option.
Next year, franchise tag in the range of 30 to 35 million
year. After that 20% raise over the first year, franchise tag,
and then we get to 2025 free and clear. There's no way
they're going to keep it would be a 44 percent raise over his
second franchise tag. That's the Kirk Cousins scenario where
there's no way
they can tag you. Again.
You become a free agent, you go wherever you want for, however,
much money. You can make some think that's what he's trying
to do.
Well, okay fine, but you got to get through three more seasons
of football and you're already starting to show some signs
that that very bruising physical style of football.
That the Ravens have you play is catching
up to you. That's the concern here.
If it's a pure drop-back passer,
you can get seven years in one place,
and then go somewhere else, and not worry about it. 28 years
old entering, your Prime perfectly healthy. Here we go.
For Lamar Jackson the way they use him.
It's kind of like a running back. At times, I'm not saying
he should play running back. I'm saying, we all know the way
they run their office, a different brand of style golf
ball, right? It's a no quarterback at football plays
that way. Exactly. Yes. And after seven years a murder.
There may
be. No tread on the tires. Exactly. That's the the risk of
not taking the deal and not engaging the Ravens to see what
kind of a deal. They would put on the table for you. Now,
I know I mean, yes, it's a risky brand of football which he
plays. That's why we're rooting for Lamar Jackson,
you know, we play that clip there from the shop.
And you talk about being more mature, and hey, part of that
would be. Hey, let's be more mature. Engaging in contract
talks. You know, I can't,
I don't think this is next-level play.
I don't think so.
I mean, again, Lamar Jackson. I know, he's a very smart
individual individual, but when it comes to stuff like this,
this seems par for the course, I mean, this is like we talked
a little bit about this last week, coming out in the draft,
whatever, you know, it's hard to get in contact with Lamar
Jackson and his Camp. So
Where I look at it and yeah, maybe he can maximize dollars by
playing the fifth year option and the franchise tag and then
go from there. But you know, as you said to is just tremendous
risk factor there. And that doesn't necessarily mean you
capitalize on the most money.
It doesn't. That's the other thing, too.
You know, he signed a new contract now, maybe three years
down the road. They need to reorganize things and they give
you a new contractor. Give
you a big signing bonus. Whatever,
you know, you there's like a dinner. Flacco. Exactly that in
Flacco. He got ugly, three years. That's what I mean. So
you don't know how it plays out anyways, or maybe you get
a three or four year contract right now and you get to go
back to the table. Like a Dak Prescott is going to own a few
years ago and you're
a huge fan of that because it's an amazing contract, right? So
that's where I don't get it, you know, and to me,
you know, that seems to be
the word. Everybody loves Lamar Jackson and Baltimore from
everybody. I talked to that love them. He's the man, of
course he is. I mean, and he's electric. He's a leader. He's
all that.
But this stuff right here,
whether it's getting the contract situation.
Your doubt and not only for yourself because me and
Florio. We're rooting for you. Lamar Jackson and we want you
to protect yourself. But again, just like we talked with some
of these free agent, quarterbacks get it figured
out. So your damn team can figure themselves out and build
the team the right way around you.
That's the other thing where your hand, a cat handicapping,
the situation to a degree. Now, they they can't appropriate
build the right way. It's like back to the nicus Ariel
conversation. We had with the Houston Texans. It's
like, we got Bucket over here for the quarterback and bucket
for the rest of the team. Well,
we can't figure out the rest of the team until the bucket with
the quarterbacks figured out yet. And that's where are, you
know,
I'd like to see that improve and hopefully they can get down
the road there a little bit. But between that, you know, and
I know he was sick a bunch of times this year, right?
You know, there's, I think the thought there that he needs to
just take care of himself a little bit better, be healthy,
healthier eating all of those type of things. You know. Those
are the kind of only complaints you hear about Lamar and
Baltimore is just that stuff right there.
And even if he is strategically waiting three more years, when
he makes over the next three years isn't going to be, what
he would make it, right? The
contract that he could get, right? Going back to last year,
fourth year of the slotted deal for the 32nd. Overall pick in
the draft. He could have replaced that with a gigantic
payday. If he'd simply gone into the castas office
with the Josh Alec contracted, as I've said many times before,
once I saw the details of the Josh Alan d. Yeah, you said
take. Fire, right, take it and say here.
Can we cross out Buffalo Bills and put in Baltimore? Ravens?
Yeah. Can we cross out Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen and put
in them are Jackson. Can we do that please? That's it. And,
and oh, by the way, by the way, if we don't, I'm not playing,
I'm not playing until we do this.
What would they have done?
What would they have done? If he had said that,
here's the deal. It was good enough for Josh Allen. He
hasn't won NFL MVP. I have we were drafted the same damn
year. He's made a hell of a lot more money than me because he
was drafted higher. And one of the reasons he was drafted so
much higher, there wasn't an
Aunt to both push Lamar Jackson and protect Lamar Jackson
in the 2018 draft run up and that's a real Dynamic. You
need. Somebody died. Not just not just pushing you in
a positive way but fighting against all the negative crap
that's out there. It's one of the reasons he
was available at number. Yes. Who agree and have an
advocate right in that Arena, right? Yeah. No. I was just
saying I didn't want to cut you off. I just want to add it to
that and it just it scares teams like them. I don't know
what to expect with this guy.
I don't know. I mean, what are we going to be dealing with him
is Mom. I don't. Understand what's going on here. Teams are
just like, hey the hell would that that affected it? You're
totally right?
I didn't mean to cut you off. I just wanted to add that.
Nobody
is talking. Yeah, when you know, there's an agent, it's
one of the top quarterback agents and I'm not going to
start listing them because I'll leave one out. And then that
person will blow up my phone saying, why didn't you mention
me to? And yes, that's how
they are. But, and, you know, he's in a point. Now, he's
a point now
where if he wanted to, he could hire any agent that he wants,
they'll line up to represent Lamar. Jackson.
So what I suggested yesterday, why not?
Contact. Five of them
and say, we're going to have some meetings.
Yeah,
we go. We're gonna go, we're gonna go to a conference room
at a hotel near where I live and we're going to sit in there
one after another and we're going to talk and you're going
to make your pitch to me.
And you know, what, along the way,
maybe he can pick their brains,
even if he chooses not to
hire any of them.
He can maybe bounce off of them. This strategy, if it is
a strategy to go one year at a time and become a free agent
because the thing is
And every player's got the right to represent himself, but
we've got the right to advise him that it's not a great idea,
especially when you're a high-end quarterback, who plays
the position in a very physical style
that is putting you at greater risk than you. Otherwise would
be if you were a traditional drop-back passer. There's
a greater physical risk. It's a given.
I think that it would be odd to say the least that
no other agent has advocated this kind of approach with
a first-round draft pick at quarterback in the approach,
being don't engage the team at all over Cena. Like like if if
this works then maybe Lamar agent you just
Lamar Jackson should just be an agent
because he's figured out the right way to do it. No. No,
this isn't the right way to do it because you are taking too
much of a risk. That's what the agent does. The agent, the good
agent
because I know there's plenty of bad agents,
the good Agent looks at the Players
overall risk profile and will give advice as if
that player was the agent, son.
Right and say look we can't
we can't take this risk. I can't let you
take this risk and it very well may work out for Lamar Jackson,
but that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. That's
right. The right thing to do is engage the Ravens and get their
best deal and at some point Chris the Ravens going to
protect themselves,
whether it's and and it'll be interesting to see what they do
with Tyler Huntley.
He's an exclusive rights free agent because it was undrafted
in 2020. Now, of course, exclusive rights free agent
means not a free agent at all. He just doesn't have
a contract. For this year, but he's got no way to
even begin to entertain offers from another team.
But if they do anything more than just sign him to
the exclusive rights for agency tender, if they signed him to
a multi-year deal, that pays him dramatically more than he's
going to make not anywhere close to market value
obviously, right. But dramatically more.
That's a signal that they're going to have plan B ready
because they don't know what they're going to get from plan
a,
they got to be ready to Pivot to Tyler Huntley. If Jackson
isn't going to engage them. Well, I would think they're
Give Tyler Hundley. Yeah, some good,
some good money to secure their team, you know, as we've talked
about before, they need that type of quarterback, right him
in. He's got good passer. We saw that got the ability to
run,
they don't have to change their offensive game plan a whole lot
when he's in there. So that makes a lot of sense. Let alone
I think him and Lamar close,
you know, but again, it's just it's it's very weird.
Never seen anything like this.
Never seen this with a franchise quarterback.
Really? If he was if he was represented by you're one of
the top quarterback agents. He'd have a new contract by
now.
He would have got it last year. Like you said any
legit top quarterback
agent would have looked at Lamar and said, hey dude,
I mean, you're you're doing cartwheels and flipping over
people and stiff arm and people and throwing the ball with
people hanging her. We got to get you a new contract.
Well, one guy falls on your ankle the wrong way. Yeah, not
only a sprained. It could get worse. We don't know. We saw
you missed the end of the year last year.
Down the playoff run.
Your.
I mean, what I want to say to Lamar Lamar Jackson is just
like you're way behind in the money already way behind.
What did you say he made last year? Mike. What was the total
compensation this past season? It was the the fourth year.
Yeah. What? Out of that one second pick in the draft. It's
not much right. So even when you add that with the 23
million, he's going to make this year. I want to go,
you're 30, 40 million behind at least
total compensation for what you could have had. If you had
a new contract, let alone to your point in my Like, people would
beat bull, knock down doors to represent. Lamar Jackson
to the point to where
he could probably get the agents to take less than
the three percent. That's mandated by the nflpa. He could probably
get some of these agents to go take one point, five percent
and I'll let you do my contract. He's gotten to that
level. It's that kind of money.
He's that kind of star that he can pull those kind of strings
and I just hope he does it. I really did. It is, is very odd.
It really is right now.
I'm looking now to it. What his salary was last year. It was
under 5 million. It may have been under 2 million. But
again, that's what you get when you are the 30 second pick in
the draft, your fourth year. Salary is not going to be
all that great. The good news for him, the CBA revision from
2020 put him in a position to make a lot more in his fifth
year option, but still he'd be making a lot more
if plain and simple. Give me the Josh Allen contract as of
last year or I'm not playing
until I get it and that's that and I think they would have
given it to him. If it was presented in that. That way,
here's what I hope.
I hope LeBron James pulled him aside
after they shot the shop. Hopa,
I mean, LeBron James seems to be extremely well, question
business. No question. He has done a great job, building
an empire for himself. I think that to the extent, that Lamar
Jackson, idolizes LeBron James, and that came through
in the show.
Hopefully,
someone like LeBron James can say to Lamar Jackson you
hear you need to take care of yourself. Yeah you got to do.
Take another Yourself by rolling, the dice with your career.
It's not smart. It's not prudent. It's not wise. You
want to be a billionaire. That's one of the comments. He
said he wants to be a billionaire and a champion.
This is not billionaire. Business moves,
building our business move is give me Josh Allen's
contractor. I'm not playing. That's the billionaire boss
move.
This refusal to engage the Ravens. They don't even know
what you don't even know what they put on the table. Yeah, if
you don't talk to him,
right? What if they would pay you more than Josh Alan? If
you're not going to talk to them, they're never going to