With every passing day, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is making himself look more and more foolish. It’s to the point now where even his most ferocious fans are having difficulty defending him. Not all reports and tweets are equal. But when the NFL sends a memo to teams warning them not to negotiate with “Florida man” Ken Francis, you know for a fact things have completely flown off the rails.
Younger athletes are often chronically online. Few people have more opinions on everything than Micah Parsons. Others spend their free time googling their names so they can clap back at folks on Twitter. But Jackson has been using the app to dispute information that is widely regarded as fact.
Lamar Jackson’s Process Has Been One Big Mistake
Not having an agent could cost Jackson an incredible amount of generational wealth. The only “con” of hiring an agent is the cost of doing business with them, which in the NFL‘s case usually ranges between 1.5-3%. That 3% is the absolute cap.
The decision was made out of ignorance. Jackson has never gone through the rigors of contract negotiations. There is no “how to” guide on Twitter for how to negotiate NFL contracts. While Jackson didn’t have representation for his rookie deal, that’s relative pennies compared to a second deal, and the parameters surrounding a rookie deal are far more carved in stone.
Bomani Jones hit the nail on the head with a March 6 segment on Game Theory With Bomani Jones. He recalled a conversation he had with hip-hop artist Phonte about 20 years ago.
“He said the importance of having a manager was you can’t call those people motherf—— but sometimes somebody has to,” Jones recalled.
He also discussed the fact that negotiations are inherently disrespectful in nature. This is business, and both sides are trying to get the best deal possible. You’re going to get lowballed, and if you’re negotiating for yourself, you’re going to be insulted.
“The first offer is going to be an insult,” Jones said. “I don’t think my agent talks to me until the third.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. Jackson could decide tomorrow that he wants an agent to negotiate on his behalf. Unfortunately, he appears dug in on representing himself instead of letting professional negotiators do what they do for a living.
There’s a greater than 0% chance that not having an agent is a big reason why Jackson fell to the final pick in Round 1 of the 2018 NFL Draft. Jackson was so dominant that he became the youngest-ever Heisman Trophy recipient at only 19 years and 337 days old. He was the most electric college football player we’d seen in a very long time, and he’d be 21 as a rookie.
MORE: 100 Top NFL Free Agents 2023
Jackson was not only the youngest-ever Heisman Trophy winner, but he also became the youngest-ever MVP. The world could have been the 23-year-old’s oyster, or in his case, being in Baltimore, blue crab. But since 2021, things have spiraled out of control narratively, and two consecutive season-ending injuries don’t help.
Having an agent isn’t a black-and-white relationship. They don’t just show up when contracts need negotiating. They’re as much a business partner as any actual business partner outside of the football world. They’re law-trained and front-line soldiers in the war against misinformation and disinformation. Agents are word assassins. NFL contract negotiations are a sliver of their actual responsibilities regarding their clients.
Jackson has and probably will always have a narrative problem because he doesn’t have an asset on his payroll to spin and forge new narratives. NBC Sports Mike Florio spoke about how important hiring an agent could be for Jackson.
“A skilled and connected agent can explain to these teams the path to getting Lamar to sign an offer sheet that the Ravens perhaps wouldn’t or couldn’t match,” Florio wrote.
“A skilled and connected agent could work the media to create the impression, true or otherwise, that a bidding war will emerge for Jackson’s services. A truly skilled and connected agent could even get a team that truly isn’t interested in Jackson to feign interest as a favor, possibly getting some other team to come to the table.”
The Deshaun Watson Deal Looms Large
Jimmy Haslam and the Cleveland Browns screwed up the perception of a fair contract for the Ravens in the Deshaun Watson deal. Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti called the deal bad for business because it would “make negotiations harder with others.”
A fully-guaranteed contract of $230 million isn’t feasible for most franchises, let alone preferred. And without a professional negotiating on his behalf, Jackson never had a chance to sniff the contract he desired.
The rest of the NFL would rather reverse the precedent set by Haslam and the Browns. They’re trying to take back control. And if Jackson had representation, they’d probably have already taken a crucial step back in the direction they want to be.
Daniel Jones, a QB with a fraction of the NFL success Jackson has accomplished, agreed to a deal worth $160 million over four years, with $92 million of that guaranteed.
Lamar Jackson Remains a Truly Special Player
As an NFL analyst, my job is to remain objective about the sport. But at the end of the day, each and every one of us got into this business because we love football. We certainly don’t do it to get rich. The most fun I have as a fan of the sport involves watching Jackson play.
Lamar Jackson the player is everything that is great about the game. He’s an absolute electric factory on the field, and his early success has helped pave the way for more mobile quarterbacks, such as Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields, Kyler Murray, and Jones — to find success at the NFL level as teams realized what a weapon their legs could be.
Lamar Jackson the player is worth the largest contract guarantees in the history of the game. Jackson, the player and the person, is worth more than Watson on both accounts. But the league wants to put the kibosh on contracts like that, especially with a salary cap that’s about to explode the QB market to new heights already.
Meanwhile, the Ravens decided to use the non-exclusive franchise tag on Jackson. They either knew other teams wouldn’t be interested in the services of a 26-year-old unanimous MVP, were okay with losing him for two first-round picks, or a combination of the two.
MORE: 2023 NFL Free Agency Best Contracts
Jackson is an astonishing 45-16 as a starter. In 12 games without him, Baltimore is just 4-8. It’s likely the Ravens realized that other organizations would have just as many issues negotiating with the agentless Jackson as they did, and took a calculated risk believing he’d be on the team in 2023 at a $32.4 million clip.
But the relationship seems so fractured at this point that we might not see Jackson on the field at all in 2023, hurting himself, the Ravens, and football fans everywhere who wouldn’t get to see him gliding around the field, avoiding sacks and throwing touchdown passes.
It’s difficult to accurately portray just how special Jackson is on the field. He has more than a few NFL records and holds a ton of Ravens records. In a league where even the best quarterbacks in the NFL have help to find outrageous success, Jackson is the only one who has proven he can carry a team on his back alone.
Baltimore has never put a competent receiving corps around him. Mark Andrews is outstanding, but the Ravens’ receiving corps has been a revolving door of mediocrity and injury, much like the rest of the roster over that time.
‘Fairness’ Is in the Eye of the Beholder
The average Joe scoffs at the idea of Jackson having the audacity to turn down what was reported as a five-year deal worth approximately $250 million with $133 fully guaranteed. But in the next breath, the average Joe also sings the praises of American capitalism and the free market. Jackson simply wants to be paid what he feels he is worth to the Ravens and the NFL.
Jackson turned down $133 million after a year battling injuries to take $23 million on the fifth-year deal. Now, he’s doing it again for another $32.4 on the franchise tag. I got into journalism because accounting involved too many numbers, but even I know that math ain’t mathing.
This is about the principle of things.
If Jackson wants to ensure outrageous generational wealth for his entire family, he and the Ravens will both make concessions and come to an agreement somewhere in the middle. But at the time of the reported deal, it would have made Jackson the second-highest-paid quarterback annually with the second-most fully guaranteed money. Considering the top deal was completely asinine, the Ravens offer feels fair enough.
MORE: Who Are the Highest-Paid Quarterbacks in the NFL in 2023?
Yet, less than a year later, after seeing Murray, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, and even Jones get monster deals or extensions, it’s clear the Ravens’ offer would have to continue climbing to become “fair” once again.
But perhaps Jackson is more calculated than we think. Maybe he’s comfortable being a martyr for the NFLPA’s cause to try and ensure more guaranteed money for their players. After all, they are the only league of the big four American sports that do not have fully guaranteed deals for players.
But we’ve seen before how steadfast the NFL can be when it wants to make a stand. After all, these are billionaire owners we’re talking about. They’ll make their money with or without Jackson on the field. Billionaire owners want control, and they’ll do everything within their power to get it back.
Hopefully, Jackson’s situation never reaches the point of no return. Hopefully, at worst, he plays two years on the tag and then finally hits the open market, where a team will inevitably cave to his demands. We saw Kirk Cousins manage that very thing a few years ago. He’s now played on seven fully-guaranteed years, including his two tagged seasons. But Cousins had an agent, and Jackson doesn’t.
Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series of books comes to mind in Jackson’s battle between not having representation and wanting a fully guaranteed deal. The series protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, spoke often about neutrality.
“Evil is Evil,” Geralt said in The Last Wish. “Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another … I’d rather not choose at all.”
But throughout the series, Geralt ALWAYS chose a side. And the decision between maximizing value and remaining agentless will come for Jackson. The time will come when he must choose the lesser of his own personal two evils. The time and place are completely unknown to us, but they are inevitable, whether the cause for such necessity is just or not.