The Curious Case of Lamar Jackson

We’ve all heard the term “unicorn” applied to Lamar Jackson in flattering ways, the intent of which is to describe a unique talent, the likes of which the NFL has rarely seen. His physical gifts are other worldly and consequently, it should surprise no one that he’s a two-time MVP. And there’s little reason to doubt that more MVP trophies will one day decorate his mantle.

Football is easy for Lamar. On any level of competition, he’s been the best player on the field. His skillset is one of one. His results are practically effortless and therefore, he doesn’t have to work at his craft or put in the same amount of classroom time because he’s more athletically endowed.

The Ravens saw something special in Lamar when they moved back into the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft to make the former Heisman winner a Raven. Ozzie Newsome & Co. did what the other 31 NFL teams were reluctant to do at the expense of first-round draft capital. They made Lamar an NFL quarterback.

Since then, he’s shattered records with his legs and with his arm. And there’s little doubt that more records will fall like dominos in the future. He’s elevated a franchise, saved John Harbaugh’s job and allowed Eric DeCosta to skimp on the offensive line. But there’s something off about Lamar these days, and it’s not just these little nagging leg injuries that have prevented him from being a full participant in any week of practice since Week 4 of the 2025 season. There’s something more. Once considered a great kid with boyish charm and an infectious smile who is polite to all of mankind, Jackson can now be best described as mercurial. He dances to the beat of his own drummer, and the Ravens only have themselves to blame for enabling this massive shift of organizational power.

You remember well, the protracted contract negotiations that started in 2022 and carried right on up to the eve of the 2023 NFL Draft. Ravens executives probably developed ulcers trying to get Lamar and his handlers to agree to a deal. Many believe that Jackson’s lack of availability during the 2022 season was part of a negotiating ploy. Lamar missed the last 5 regular season games that season due to a leg injury that was shrouded in secrecy. He then missed a winnable playoff game in Cincinnati. Rumors of locker room discord surfaced involving Jackson and his teammates, most notably Marcus Peters.

The mysterious injury left some questioning his commitment to the team. He was rarely around and certainly not along the sidelines encouraging his teammates or lending an experienced ear to backup Tyler Huntley. After nearly two full offseasons of on again, off again contract discussions, the extension was finally announced just prior to the 2023 NFL Draft.

All seemed well in the world of Ravens Flock.

LAMAR JACKSON HAS AGREED TO 5 YEAR DEAL WITH THE BALTIMORE RAVENS!!!! B-MORE IS LIT!!!! pic.twitter.com/y89tjb5DxH

— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) April 27, 2023

By most accounts the Ravens 2023 season was a success. They were the AFC’s No. 1 seed in the playoffs and Lamar won his second MVP. But the Ravens again did what they so often do since Jackson has been at the controls of the offense. They fell on their collective face in a big game. The 2023 season ended like the long jump skier on The Wide World of Sports. The agony of defeat lingered that night as dreams of hoisting the Lamar Hunt Trophy at The Bank vanished in the cool winter air of “Uncharmed” City.

The Ravens collected their shattered Super Bowl hopes off the turf and cobbled them together for one more run in 2024 – one more run that fell short yet again, thanks in part to their franchise quarterback’s carelessness with the football in another big game. The lessons from the previous seasons were lost. Maybe they weren’t lessons at all. The same mistakes reared their ugly heads, and the utter despair of shattered playoff hopes lingered once again like the stench along Back River.

Will 2025 usher in more of the same?

Something just doesn’t feel right about this Ravens team. They have no identity. There’s nothing that they can really hang their hats on, point to and say, “Our opponent today is going to have to beat ‘this’!” Because “this” is a mystery and to solve the mystery of what is wrong with the 2025 Ravens, it starts with the star player who dons the No. 8.

Back in 2023 when Lamar inked his current deal, the contract was structured to give the Ravens some salary cap breathing room from 2023 thru 2025. But it was understood by all parties involved when the deal was signed, that the two sides would need to reconvene no later than the start of the new league year in March 2026, to extend the deal and lighten the monstrous cap hit of $74.65M that now sits on the books for 2026 and 2027. Without a lighter cap number, Lamar’s deal will prevent the Ravens from keeping their own key free agents while undermining attempts to augment obvious roster weaknesses via free agency.

But let’s make no mistake about it – Lamar controls this narrative. They need his extension, and he knows it and without the benefit of the franchise tag, a tool teams have relied upon when contract talks with a coveted player go awry, the balance of power shifts even more in favor of the player.

Contract talks between the capricious Jackson and the Ravens in 2022 were a nightmare for DeCosta. It could be argued that they ruined the team’s 2022 season. Perhaps these extension talks have done the same to the 2025 campaign.

It’s widely known that Lamar doesn’t have an agent and is managed by his mother Felicia Jones. Jones through the eyes of Lamar, is a superhero. When Lamar’s dad passed, Jones worked morning and night to support her family of 4 kids. She also found time to be Lamar’s coach. An athlete herself, Jones would put Lamar through the grind and force him to run with her and practice drills in the backyard. She was Jackson’s confidante. It has been said that Lamar trusts few people and at the top of his list of trustworthy people sits Felicia Jones. Jones has advanced degrees in education and has done some postgraduate work in civil rights law. Jones’ legal and administrative expertise helped Lamar land his current $260M deal.

Ms. Jones has it together!

As a single mom, Jones is fiercely loyal to her children. Her role as principal negotiator is to get the most for her son. And while NFL agents do the same for their clients, the end game for agents is multi-faceted. Agents need to be mindful of their relationships with NFL GMs. They are relationship driven and not transactional. Jones, unfortunately for the Ravens, is transactional. She’s doing the best that she can for her son as his manager. Her end game is singular. Agents might seek win-win deals. Jones is out to win for her son.

And therein lies the danger.

Back in 2022 as a guest on UNINTERRUPTED’S The Shop, Lamar shared his thoughts on LeBron James and the ways in which the NBA legend influences him:

“Everything. Being a champion. I feel like that’s the one thing I wanna take from him, if anything else. Being a champion and being a billionaire. That’s just what I’ve been thinking about since I was a little kid. Being a billionaire and being a champion.”

Rest assured that the determined Jones was taking notes.

So, the Ravens need Lamar Jackson. He knows it. Felicia Jones knows it. One sits in the driver’s seat, the other, shotgun. They steer the Ravens future because the Ravens and their highly touted brain trust that includes Steve Bisciotti, Eric DeCosta, Ozzie Newsome and John Harbaugh have allowed Lamar and his mom to paint them into a corner. Jones and Jackson played chess while the Ravens ivory tower played checkers. And now, they’re going to have to pay dearly, in one way or another.

And that might explain some of Lamar’s curious behaviors:

• His mysterious injuries
• The missed practices that aren’t scrutinized or criticized
• Questionable work habits
• Gone as soon as the season ends; arrives for only mandatory practices
• Rarely posts at player sanctioned weekly meetings

And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it. The truth be told, Lamar, not Steve Bisciotti, is the boss. He is the organization’s Vito Corleone.

I’ve asked some close to the club, if there’s a teammate who can reel in Lamar – someone who he respects enough to convince him to be a more engaged leader. And I’m told that when called out on his behaviors, Lamar retreats a little more; engages less; practices less. After nearly 8 seasons with the club, Jackson’s maturity or lack thereof is evident.

For someone who is so exulted by the fans of Baltimore, he does little to engage them. What has he done for the city? How does he give back? He doesn’t have his own foundation. On occasion he’ll make a public appearance, but it regularly goes hand-in-hand with promoting one of his sponsors.

There’s no blow back from the team. No accountability. He just goes on and does what he wants.

Over time, the Ravens have essentially enabled a diva. Not the volatile type like George Pickens or Tyreek Hill. But he has become the most entitled Raven in team history.

So, what should the Ravens do?

If this was a game of poker, Lamar sits behind his Oakley’s at the table with a royal flush while DeCosta has a pair of 2’s. Should the Ravens cave and just make the man the most highly paid quarterback in league history with a 100% guarantee (you know that’s the Jackson/Jones goal) and help Lamar inch closer to that billionaire dream?

Should the Ravens just let the current deal run out and allow this next contract to become an ongoing and nauseating topic of discussion for the next two years?

Or should the Ravens just trade Lamar?

The starting point for Lamar’s extension is going to be Dak Prescott’s average yearly pay of $60M. He’ll need to eclipse that, and the guess here is that talks will start at $65M per. Moreover, given his leverage that includes his supreme importance to the team, the intentionally inflated cap number in 2026 that was intended to return all parties to the bargaining table, and the absence of a franchise tag, Lamar will aim for a fully guaranteed deal, something that he wanted back in 2023.

If the Ravens let the current deal lapse, Lamar will eventually be gone, the Ravens will limp through 2026 while being forced to absorb that monstrous cap hit, eventually settling for a a 2029 compensatory pick after he signs elsewhere. Or DeCosta can restructure Lamar, and kick the can and some cap dollars down the road so that the Ravens can operate as they usually do in 2026. Assuming of course the standard restructure language has not been stripped from Lamar’s deal, just like they did with the franchise tag.

Trading Lamar is an option, but it is a potentially embarrassing one for the Ravens brass. Even if the Ravens can land a serviceable quarterback and multiple first-round picks in exchange, who will give up that much just to take on Lamar and Ms. Jones at the bargaining table? A new deal would have to be in place, and we’ve seen how challenging that is for the Ravens much less a team that the Jackson/Jones duo isn’t familiar with.

Plus, trading Lamar is an organizational admission that they failed to win a championship with this generational quarterback. Imagine how things might look for DeCosta and Harbaugh if Lamar goes elsewhere and wins a championship. And then of course there’s the blowback from the fans. Without Lamar, the Ravens stand to lose a significant amount of money, a chunk of the fan base and they become less attractive to fans in the US that have no geographic affiliation with a team and/or those fans in the growing global market.

This is quite the conundrum for the Ravens. And even if they do extend Lamar, the work doesn’t get any easier for DeCosta and Harbaugh, provided of course the latter is even around. The Ravens have an offensive line that needs a major overhaul, yet their Pro Bowl center is an unrestricted free agent who the Ravens probably can’t afford. They have absolutely no pass rush. NONE! Both coordinators suck and while we’re at it, we may as well throw in special teams’ coordinator Chris Horton too. The kick coverage and return teams are subpar at best.

At the end of the day, Lamar isn’t a bad guy. Not by any stretch. He has redeeming qualities and means no harm to anyone. But he has been raised a certain way, and the result is a man who at the very least is professionally immature. He has no agent who understands the league’s inner-workings. He trusts begrudgingly. He listens to one person – his mom. And she only has her son’s best interests in mind — to unleash his inner Bruno Mars and chase a dream of becoming a billionaire.

And for the Ravens and their fans, it could get so f-ing bad!

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