The Baltimore Ravens haven’t done much during the early tampering period of 2023 NFL free agency. They’ve re-signed a few of their own free agents, while seeing others walk out the door for other opportunities with big-money contracts.
One player that is seeking a big-money contract is quarterback Lamar Jackson, who is currently on the non-exclusive franchise tag with a $32.4 million cap hit. When listing out winners and losers from the early tampering period of 2023 free agency Brent Sobleski of Bleacher Report named Jackson as a loser, first mentioning that the quarterback couldn’t speak to teams until the new league year started on Wednesday at 4pm EST.
“To be clear, potential suitors for Lamar Jackson couldn’t speak with the quarterback until the start of the new league year because he lacks representation from an agent. Technically, he was a player still under contract with the Baltimore Ravens until 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday…We’ll never know whether Jackson would have received an offer during the tampering period. More concisely, it doesn’t matter…What matters is what occurred at the game’s most important position as Jackson waited for his chance to be courted…Essentially, the Ravens weaponized the non-exclusive franchise tag.”
Sobleski then mentioned the factors that were put into play by Baltimore by using the non-exclusive tag, and listed off what other quarterbacks got signed during the last few days.
“The organization knew: A) only a handful of teams could even afford Jackson based on his request of a fully guaranteed deal somewhere in the range of Deshaun Watson’s contract; B) that contingent grew even smaller since interested parties needed to have first-round draft picks to surrender in this year and next year if the Ravens didn’t match an offer; and C) most organizations wouldn’t want to sit back and wait the five-day period to see if Baltimore planned to match an offer sheet…Because of these factors, the quarterback carousel ensued without Jackson…The pool of potential suitors for Jackson’s services is shallow, if not nonexistent beyond the Ravens. By not doing anything, the 26-year-old 2019 league MVP lost because any leverage he had quickly disappeared.”
