Coming Together Against Good Defenses

[hackjam]

It might not be the Ravens. But someone is going to offer him a massive deal. Maybe he has to play on the tag next year, but I doubt he gets it twice in a row.

And if they are expecting a big jump in the cap after next season, maybe he'd want a tag next year (probably more than $30M). Then, the next season he either gets the second tag (20% more than the previsous year, so at least $36M) or he gets a mega deal.

Franchise tags for QBs are really tough because you have to eat the whole cap hit in that tag year. You can't spread it out like you can with the mega (and long) deals.

So if Balt wants to keep him (presumably they do), do they give him a very large cap hit next year with the tag? Or do they give him a huge deal so they can keep his cap number low for a few more years while kicking the eventual cap pain down the road?

Most teams seem to prefer to kick the can down the road (just like we did with Ben).

IIRC, when Joel Correy was talking about a potential Jackson deal last off-season, he said that he thought that the issue was that Jackson wanted the contract to be fully guaranteed. He said that he wasn't going to get that, so he should concede the fully guaranteed contract, but insist that (i) he become the highest AAV QB in the league and (ii) that the structure of the contract would be such that salaries are more front loaded than previously (so he's still getting lots of money early even if it's not guaranteed). Apparently the Ravens did a very player friendly (i.e. frontloaded) contract with Mark Andrews. So Correy was arguing that Jackson would have leverage here "if you can do that for our TE, you should be able to do it for our franchise QB too".

It will be interesting to see how it plays out. It's an interesting case because he was willing to take the risk at least this year on the 5th year option. I think that kind of means that he should also be willing to take the risk on the tag because he'll be making at least 30% more next year on the tag.

Ravens are going to have some decisions to make. Non-exclusive franchise tag is ~$31MM. Exclusive is ~$45MM. It probably takes ~$52MM/year AAV to get Jackson to sign. They have ~$47MM in space and Roquan Smith to sign too. Marcus Peters is also a FA. They can restructure Stanley, Humphrey, and Andrews but there isn't a ton of salary to leverage there. Nick Boyle seems like a cut but he's a big component of their run game and Calais Campbell may retire. They can generate the cap room but they could really be in a tough spot by 2025 or so if they're not careful.