It’s now been more than two months since Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh confirmed that the team is looking into extending superstar quarterback Lamar Jackson, but t’s been mostly quiet in that time, until now that is.
During an appearance on the “BMore Baseball Podcast,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta finally gave fans the update they’ve been waiting for, even if it’s a small one.
“We’ve had some conversations before the draft, after the draft, in person last week,” DeCosta said. “I think we’re in the introductory sort of stage of looking at what an extension might look like.”
Jackson, 28, signed a five-year, $260 million extension with the Ravens in 2023, making him the highest-paid player in NFL history at the time. Now, though, he ranks 10th among quarterbacks with an average annual salary of $52 million as more and more players sign mammoth extensions of their own.
Even though it was a five-year deal, it was realistically more of a three-year deal. Jackson’s cap hit balloons to $74.5 million starting in 2026, and there’s just no way that the Ravens can go into the season with a cap hit that high. Extending him would not only bring down his cap-hit in the short term, but keep him locked up for the long term as well.
However, extending Jackson is far easier said than done. The Ravens aren’t exactly swimming in cap space, and with players such as Kyle Hamilton and Tyler Linderbaum also needing extensions soon, they’ll have to manage their limited space carefully.
“We’ve got a lot of business that we’re conducting with different players,” DeCosta said. “We’re in a situation where we’re blessed to have most of the team coming back, but as we look out over the next two, three, four, five years, we’re trying to keep as many good players as we can. We’ve got some guys that we feel like have a chance to really be prolific players for us that can be here a long time. We’re trying to get as many of those guys signed up as possible. That’s a big challenge and Lamar’s certainly a big part of that.”
