NFL Insider Jason LaCanfora: Baker Mayfield Deal Shows What Ravens May Have to Pay Lamar Jackson

Baker Mayfield and Lamar Jackson are very different quarterbacks. To say otherwise would be naïve. Baker Mayfield just signed a $165m deal, according to league sources (Image: Getty) Jackson has two Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards – and somehow didn’t get the award in his best-ever season – and is a generational player in the league with his ability to take games over with his legs or his arm. Mayfield is a winning quarterback who lacks those athletic traits and the ability Jackson has to harness them. He has carved out a nice career, but nothing like Jackson. But the contract Mayfield just agreed to, on the cusp of the regular season, may be further reinforcement for the Baltimore Ravens, Jackson’s employer, of what it might take to get Jackson to extend his deal with them. Mayfield’s three-year deal is worth $165m, according to league sources. He’ll make $55m a year into his 30s. Jackson, who represents himself and has a strong understanding of his market value, always takes note. Could Lamar Jackson Become the NFL’s First $70m Quarterback? A few years back, Dak Prescott, despite coming off a major injury, became the league’s first $60m man, which begs the question of whether the Ravens might be able to salvage this offseason with their quarterback by putting three years, $210m fully guaranteed, in front of Jackson before it’s too late. “I think $70m is the number for Lamar,” longtime NFL agent Mike McCartney, who secured a three-year, fully guaranteed deal for Kirk Cousins with the Vikings and represents a host of NFL players and has studied Jackson’s situation closely, told me recently. McCartney would be pushing for a three-year structure – like Mayfield received and the one he secured for Cousins coming off two franchise tags in Washington. McCartney feels like time may already be running out on the Ravens given the structure of Jackson’s deal – he has an untenable $85m cap hit in 2027, with a no-trade and no-franchise tag clause. “The way I look at it, if I’m Lamar, I’m 17 games from finding out what I’m worth on the open market,” he noted, given the poison pill of that cap number and no way for the Ravens to address it without Jackson’s approval. That provides little motivation for further discussion on his end. This remains the biggest contract issue in the National Football League (NFL), by far, with the Ravens’ refusal to be more proactive about it baffling execs and agents around the league. The Ravens have shunned short-term, fully guaranteed deals in the past, but it seems like a Hail Mary they should probably try before Week 1. At the start of the week, Mayfield and Tampa were at an impasse that was going to extend through the season. Then the right numbers on an offer changed that. Those numbers won’t apply here, but the structure just might. The post NFL Insider Jason LaCanfora: Baker Mayfield Deal Shows What Ravens May Have to Pay Lamar Jackson appeared first on Casino.org.