Teams’ lack of Lamar pursuit still raises questions

Adam Schefter, ESPN Senior WriterDec 30, 2023, 07:45 PM ET
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- Joined ESPN in 2009
- Former president of the Pro Football Writers of America and the author of four books

Lamar Jackson has the Baltimore Ravens close to clinching the AFC’s No. 1 seed and has emerged as the favorite to win his second MVP award.

But last offseason, there weren’t any other teams that made a major push to sign Jackson, and only a couple appeared to have expressed mild interest in signing the star quarterback to an offer sheet.

The two teams known to have inquired about Jackson’s services were the Las Vegas Raiders and Carolina Panthers, according to league sources, but neither team got overly aggressive with Jackson, and neither came close to signing him to an offer sheet that the Ravens would have had a chance to match.

The unsettled situation surrounding Jackson last offseason has bled into this season, with some sources around the league still wondering why there wasn’t more of an effort to sign the player now in position to win the MVP.

The biggest question might be the perception that the Ravens automatically would have matched any offer sheet that Jackson signed, as some have suggested. The Ravens didn’t place the exclusive $45 million franchise tag on Jackson that would have prevented other teams from negotiating and signing him; they placed the non-exclusive $32 million franchise tag on him, inviting other teams to craft a creative enough offer sheet if they were inclined.

At the NFL owners meetings in Arizona last March, just as Ravens coach John Harbaugh sat down to speak with reporters, Jackson announced on social media that he had requested a trade out of Baltimore as the team had “not been interested in meeting my value.”

Jackson seemed to be willing to force the issue, but no team engaged him enough to make it worthwhile. Instead, teams decided to pursue other quarterback options.

• The Panthers traded wide receiver DJ Moore, a 2023 first-round draft pick, a 2023 second-round pick, a 2024 first-round pick that currently stands to be the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming draft, and a 2025 second-round pick to the Chicago Bears for the No. 1 overall pick that became Bryce Young.

• The New York Jets acquired Aaron Rodgers in a trade with the Green Bay Packers.

• The New Orleans Saints signed Derek Carr.

• The Raiders signed Jimmy Garoppolo.

• The Atlanta Falcons signed Taylor Heinicke to join Desmond Ridder.

• The Washington Commanders signed Jacoby Brissett to join Sam Howell.

No team put any energy into crafting an offer sheet that Baltimore might have had a difficult time matching, as some teams have done over the years with players on tags.

Theories abound as to how and why this happened, and some sources around the league believe it had to do with the fact that Jackson didn’t finish either the 2021 or 2022 seasons because of knee injuries.

Any team interested in signing Jackson to the type of offer sheet that it would have taken to lure him out of Baltimore would have needed to do a complete and thorough medical examination of Jackson’s knee — and some sources theorized that he could have been apprehensive about such an arrangement lest a team find anything medically wrong, affecting his value.

But Jackson has played every game this season; he has been a model of health, which is reflected in the fact that the Ravens (12-3) are first in the AFC North and in position to clinch a division title.

In the eyes of some around the league, the process of signing Jackson was not made any simpler by the fact that he did not have an agent — someone who could help him through a complicated deal worth about a quarter of a billion dollars.

But there was so much confusion and suspicion regarding teams’ approaches to Jackson last offseason that there still is an ongoing collusion case being pursued by the NFL Players Association, which is trying to figure out why a player of Jackson’s caliber did not generate pursuit from multiple teams, league sources told ESPN.

Many sources agree that it can’t be as simple as teams all believing that Baltimore would have matched any offer sheet that Jackson signed.

Eventually on April 27, 11 days after Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles agreed to a five-year, $255 million deal, Jackson and the Ravens agreed to a five-year, $260 million contract extension.