There remains no sign that the Baltimore Ravens and star quarterback Lamar Jackson are all that close to agreeing to a contract extension this summer.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City Chiefs recently reworked Patrick Mahomes‘ contract to keep him locked down through the 2033 season and give him a new average salary of $64M. According to NFL insider Jason La Canfora of SportsBoom US and Sports Illustrated, the two situations have raised eyebrows around the league.
Patrick Mahomes may have just raised Lamar Jackson’s asking price
“Jackson, a two-time NFL Most Valuable Player, completed the team’s offseason program this week and departed Baltimore nowhere closer to a contract extension, according to league sources,” La Canfora wrote for an update shared on Friday morning. “…This latest turn in the market has cast further doubt in front offices around the NFL about the Ravens’ willingness or intent to meet Jackson’s contract demands (which have included fully-guaranteed deals in the past).”
A Thursday report indicated that “it would hardly be out of the question for Jackson to sign a deal worth $65M per year” if he and the Ravens come to an agreement this summer. Following the 2022 season, Jackson went public with a trade
request amid his supposed frustrations with how contract negotiations were going at the time. However, he eventually signed a five-year deal
reportedly worth up to $260M with $185M guaranteed to stay with the Ravens.
Is a new Lamar Jackson trade request on the table?
According to La Canfora, “numerous NFL executives and agents have told SportsBoom they expect Jackson to eventually request a trade, as he did in the past, with his timeline for getting a new deal consistently behind his peers, even when his production is historically significant.”
One unnamed longtime personnel executive told La Canfora he thinks Jackson won’t stay with the Ravens through 2027 if the signal-caller doesn’t sign an extension by Week 1 of the upcoming campaign.
“Something keeps holding them back,” the executive said about the Ravens. “…Something’s not right there.”
Meanwhile, a general manager told La Canfora that the Mahomes agreement is “not going to make it any cheaper” for the Ravens to make Jackson happy. Jackson’s contract prevents the Ravens from trading him without his consent or retaining his rights via the franchise tag after the 2027 season.
“Jackson still represents himself, like in 2022,” La Canfora shared for his latest Sports Illustrated piece. “And, again, he has even more leverage now. And all of these are absolutely interconnected.”
In short, it sounds like many members of the NFL community are convinced the latest Jackson-Ravens saga could soon get messy.