For nearly two years the Ravens tried to negotiate a deal with Lamar Jackson. The contract became bigger than the team. Lamar held tight to what he believed his market value to be while the Ravens steadfastly maintained that the targeted benchmark of Lamar’s camp – Deshaun Watson’s fully guaranteed $230M deal, was nothing more than an outlier.
Debate ensued between the sides and undeniably among the fan base. Some fans believed that Lamar wasn’t worth the money he yearned for while others defended him as a generational talent whose performance was sabotaged by an archaic offensive architect and a wide receiver corps that was among the league’s worst. To put the situation in perspective, it wasn’t altogether different than your 85-year old grandmother owning a Maserati to drive during her weekly visits to grocery store. You get the drift…
But after adopting a better late than never approach, the Ravens replaced offensive coordinator Greg Roman with Todd Monken, a coach who arrives with a reputation for maximizing offensive assets; for taking unique skillsets and placing them in positions to succeed. The Ravens didn’t stop there and vowed to retool the wide receiver room. And they have.
Months later, there was a contractual breakthrough. The painfully frustrating negotiating stalemate that held the franchise hostage this offseason had come to an end. Lamar Jackson agreed to a new deal, finally, and will be the team’s quarterback for at least the next 5 seasons. Consequently, Lamar has become the game’s highest paid player on a per annum basis.
So now there’s revived hope for 2023. With one signature stroke, the Ravens elevated from a 2023 question mark to a Super Bowl contender. A rejuvenated Lamar paired with a healthy stable of running backs, a bolstered set of pass catchers and an offensive mind to unleash the group’s potential, could make the Ravens offense more dynamic, more explosive and far less one-dimensional. It could also catapult the club beyond the Divisional Round of the postseason dance.
The pieces seem to be coming together.
But…
Yesterday, during the team’s voluntary OTA’s, Lamar was a no-show. A brand new offense with new players really needs its franchise quarterback to be firmly entrenched at the epicenter of the offensive development. They need to play fast and be multi-faceted. But to accomplish that, there needs to be a mastery of the offensive design in order to unleash its potential. And it starts with the starting signal caller.
Yet despite the new contract, despite all of the uncertainty of Lamar’s injuries towards the end of the 2022 season, despite the trade demands, despite the rumored locker room repair that starts with Lamar, the enigmatic quarterback opted not to participate in voluntary practices. He opted not to put all of this noise to bed.
Even if his knee isn’t 100% (he stated that it’s good to go), why not be in attendance? Why not mend any fences with teammates that are partially frayed? Why not be by Todd Monken’s side to soak up and marinate in that new offense and its accompanying nomenclature in order to help it realize its innate ability?
Instead, Lamar was AWOL.
Instead, he took an opportunity to learn, to get better and discarded it.
Instead, he allowed the narrative that he’s a me-guy and not a team-guy to breathe.
I get that these practices are voluntary. But we’re talking about the game’s highest paid player who just signed a contract that still has damp ink.
Do you think Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow or Josh Allen would have done the same?
25 Responses
AMEN! Thank you, Tony! My sentiments exactly about this ersatz “team” player!
Thirsty for Lamar? Give it a break, Tony!
“Thirsty”? Creepy choice of verbiage Ryan. Let me fix it for you. I’m “waiting” for a fully committed Lamar.
I agree Tony. How could it have hurt to show up? He seems clueless about optics. Like, share a video of yourself driving 105 mph. Stay away from voluntary workouts when every PR consultant in the world would recommend solidarity with the team. Exciting football player, strange cat.
“Talk is cheap” was a quote my parents will tell me all thru my childhood. I have come across people in my life that always have an excuse on why things didn’t work out for them. They never took ownership. I get that feeling with Lamar. I am sure he is a great kid in that “unicorn” way , fun to watch maybe fun to be around but you get the feeling he rolls that way when everything is going his way. I just don’t have that warm and fuzzy feeling that he will take us to the promised land and I hope I am wrong because Lamar is going to be here for 5 more years.
Not exactly a ‘new’ problem. Hungry players wrestle for scraps, fat cats take a nap . . .
True LEADERSHIP at it’s finest!
It just makes Vinny C’s comments from over a year ago that much more credible. He said Lamar was the last QB in the building in the morning, and the first one out in the afternoon. Also has zero film study habits and is late to meetings. I just hope this is all not true, because if so, it’s gonna be awhile before the Trophy comes our way again. My personal opinion is that he is not willing to put in the work to be a Superbowl Champion, I hope I am wrong.
Wow…this hate some of you have for Lamar ans other players is real and sad. Many vet players don’t come to OTAs… Why would anyone use that as an opportunity to discredit him. Thankfully he does not have to depend on any of the people entertaining such negativity. Just be happy for him and the team… JUST TRY IT!!!
See Tony’s reply to Steve Webster above! New OC, new offensive system and playbook, new receivers that he lobbied for and…..a new $260M contract! He should have been the first one out there!
Being the QB of a supposedly Super Bowl worthy team, being a team leader, being THE HIGHEST PAID PLAYER in the HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE, on a team bringing in a whole new offense, with the exact players he insisted on having … maybe we’re expecting him to do what all the great QBs do. BE A LEADER, maybe show the fans and his teammates that he’s willing to do a little more than the bare minimum . C’mon Lamar … JUST TRY IT!!
I had hoped throughout the off-season that Lamar would play this year on the franchise tag. He would either focus and work to maximize his long-term value, or he would sulk and tank both his own chances and the team’s.
We needed that franchise year to see which quarterback we have before committing to 5 years. If management was wrong, and Lamar doesn’t maximize his talents, then this contract will be a colossal albatross. Lamar’s no-show certainly does not provide confidence that he is truly committed to anything beyond fame and fortune.
As others have said, I hope that I’m wrong.
Yes. It’s unfortunate but it’s an elite or senior thing to quit the OTAs. Maybe it’s a status thing since all the big guys do it. The team – coaches and management will all cover for him. He is not going to do anything he isn’t paid for.
lamar is like that kid in school that is getting by with pure and raw talent – no study has been required. At some point you would expect that will catch up. Maybe he already has the playbook. He may choose to be the sept-Feb guy but he needs to be there full-time. I think this will be a very telling year in his motivations.
Maybe I’m missing something, but the Ravens don’t list their first OTAs until May 22nd.
Rookie mini camp May 5-7
Voluntary OTAs May 22, 23, 24…a couple days the first two weeks in June, then mandatory OTAs June 14th and 15th.
What exactly did Lamar miss?
I think he missed an opportunity to get better.
Yes, and he needs to get A LOT better to even begin justifying that contract!
Every opportunity to learn a new O is an opportunity to get better. Im convinced hurts woulda participated.
He also missed an opportunity to put this kind of criticism to rest – and at really no cost, just a plane ticket from Florida.
If it’s not even an official OTA-chances are he had other plans. I just want to see the full 6 paragraph think-piece on how great Lamar is when he shows up for OTA’s. I want TL to give the same energy he gave to this. Let’s be consistent.
I am not optimistic.
Lamar got paid. Now it’s time for him to show us the money.
I think Lamar said at his presser he wanted to get together with some guys and throw? Why not get together in Owings Mills and throw with coaches around and trainers? He wasn’t the only one who abstained. New offensive playbook and OC. What a great opportunity for all to get aquainted? That being said I think the league should just do away with this optional ota.
I don’t know why Lamar was not there. Nor where he was. I don’t know who else was not there. I don’t know the standard/expectation for this “voluntary” team activity. I know that the schedule says OTAs begin on the 22nd of this month, so it is unclear why this activity was called an OTA. I don’t know what conversations transpired between Lamar and Todd Monken on this issue. I do know there were some very harsh things said about Lamar while he was negotiating his contract in an extremely difficult environment thanks to the guarantee provided to Deshaun Watson by the Browns. This created an excessive amount of uncertainty in negotiations. I personally thought some fans were way out of bounds in what they said about our franchise quarterback during these negotiations. Some of these awful comments have persisted even after the negotiations resolved favorably between Lamar and the Ravens. I also know that the Ravens have been painfully slow in replacing offensive coordinators that were way past their productiveness in Lamar’s development as a QB; and also before Lamar was on the team. That’s on the head coach primarily. The Ravens fell short in providing top notch offensive receivers necessary to improve the offense. Happily, the Ravens now have a promising new offensive coordinator and receivers. And we have our franchise quarterback for 5 years. It is time to see what this new alignment can do. I am personally very excited to see how this works out. I was a Baltimore Colts fan for life. Now a Baltimore Ravens fan for life. My criticism of the Ravens coaches, etc. have been resolved. I don’t have any criticism of Lamar. People need to learn to move forward with positivity with the Ravens as a whole. This set up provides the opportunity for a potentially amazing season for the Ravens. That’s what it is all about. Having played football for a while myself, I am confident this is absolutely how Lamar, his teammates and the Raven’s coaching staff, etc. are proceeding. I hope most of the fans get aboard.
Respectively, throw all those questions out the window. In this situation, you do it because it looks good, and because you want more of Monken, not less.
Tony stayed quiet all this time after Lamar negotiated a great contract, just to bash him the first chance he gets. Crickets up into that point. Hmmmm, wonder why? Lol. It was clear during his presser during signing, he was not coming. They asked him and he was non committal. Probably had something scheduled for all we know. Guess what though, LJ clearly doesn’t care what we think, he’s his own person and comfortable in his skin. Good for him. Let the haters hate.