There is one sound the Baltimore Ravens should be hoping to hear right now, a week removed from giving Lamar Jackson the highest annual salary in National Football League history.
The chirping symphony of public criticism.
Few general managers actively enjoy being told that the administrative and personnel decisions they have made are flat out wrong, though most accept skepticism as an unavoidable part of the job.
Ravens GM Eric DeCosta however, should be wishing for fans, commentators, experts and anyone else he can think of to be spouting that Jackson’s five-year, $260 million contract is too high, with too much guaranteed ($185 million), presenting too great of a risk to be a cause for true celebration.
Not because DeCosta has a masochistic streak – but because of the nature of Jackson’s personality.
Jackson has used questions about his ability as high-grade fuel. He absorbs disrespect and digests it as an energy source. He hates being doubted, but he loves the results and so did Baltimore, especially at the front end of his NFL career. He could take any suggestion that this money isn’t quite worth it and use that as a prime motivator.
Our memories of draft night get hazy over the years, all those picks and subplots and the way every selection from that heady weekend seems like they’re going to pan out. You can be forgiven, then, if you don’t recall what happened when Jackson – the Heisman Trophy winner – got selected with the 32nd pick in 2018, 31 spots behind Baker Mayfield, and a good few hours after Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen.
He strode onto the stage, smiling but clearly agitated by the long wait, and made it clear in subsequent interviews he was now going to turn every waking moment into a mission to exact revenge on all the teams that didn’t select him.
Less than two years later, he was named league MVP.
The negative chatter isn’t overwhelming following his huge deal, but there have been some questions, mostly about whether the Ravens could have probably found a way to avoid paying this much.
The QB market is its own machine, not constrained by any typical financial conventions. Mostly, when a team signs their quarterback for the long term, however much for, it is seen as a victory. After all, an established figure under center is what every team craves, especially if they don’t have it.
But there were a few rumblings about how the Ravens got persuaded to hand over a record sum after nearly two years of negotiating with a player who essentially represented himself, without using a licensed agent.
There was talk about how four seasons have now gone by since the MVP campaign, how Jackson’s career postseason record is 1-3 with four total touchdowns and seven turnovers, how he missed the end of the past two seasons with knee and ankle sprains, and whether his fleet-footed style lends itself to durability.
Jackson’s price was set, and his negotiating was basically done for him, when Jalen Hurts signed with Philadelphia for $51 million per year a week earlier. Hurts did, however, take the Eagles to the brink of the Super Bowl, while Jackson hasn’t gotten close to one.
Neither has it escaped wider notice that some of the biggest and boldest contracts inked within the last couple of years have not all turned out to be a beacon of future promise that they were touted as.
The Arizona Cardinals secured a five-year extension with Kyler Murray and are now tangled up to the tune of $46.1 million per year as the team heads toward a new season widely regarded as one of the worst in the league.
The Denver Broncos lavished cash upon Russell Wilson but are now hoping incoming head coach Sean Payton can sprinkle some stardust and lead a bounce-back from a dire 5-12 effort in 2022.
The jibes over the Ravens deal haven’t been especially loud, but you can bet Jackson will have seen and heard them. He’s still just 26, and he clearly plans to spend the next five years proving people wrong. Slights ignite something within him, and a fired-up Jackson is precisely the version the Ravens want and need.
He will have the best receiving corps that he’s ever thrown to, with a pair of bold statements made in the expensive recruitment of Odell Beckham Jr., followed by Baltimore selecting exciting receiver Zay Flowers out of Boston College in the first round.
Whether Jackson gets any kind of mental lift from winning his standoff with the Ravens remains to be seen. It should not be downplayed what he did, holding his nerve, sticking to his beliefs, and getting the meatiest contract in the NFL world – at least for now.
This is the time of year when so much of the talk is about money. Finally, after a stalemate, a standoff, a trade request and a reconciliation, Jackson is carrying a sack of cash on his shoulder. Baltimore will hope that there’s still a good-sized chip beneath it, for it can help make all those millions worthwhile.
