What the heck is going on with Lamar Jackson and the Ravens?

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Recent news has surfaced that the Baltimore Ravens are planning to franchise tag star quarterback, Lamar Jackson, heading into the offseason; however, they haven’t ruled out possible trade options if something good comes.

Lamar has until March 7th, which is the tag deadline, to sign a long-term contract. If not, he’ll be tagged and make around $32 million next season compared from 2021 when he only made $1.77 million thanks to his rookie contract.

How can a former MVP of the league be in a situation like this where the team that drafted him and saw his progress may not stick with him long term? If you look at the offense when Lamar Jackson is not playing the team looks terrible and non-explosive compared to when Jackson is playing.

Of course the main culprit of why Lamar doesn’t have a long-term contract right now is because of two reasons; The past two seasons he’s been hurt towards the end of the year and they were successful and won Super Bowls with quarterbacks like Trent Dilfer and Joe Flacco. They may think they don’t need a superstar quarterback to win as long as they have a great Defense to take pressure off the Offense.

If Lamar can’t get pen to paper with the Ravens, other teams may try to swoop in and try to sign Jackson. A couple of teams who are quarterback hungry and may look into signing Lamar are the Las Vegas Raiders, New York Jets and the Atlanta Falcons.

This will be possibly the biggest storyline heading into the off-season once the Super Bowl ends. Lamar’s asking price may be too much for Baltimore because he maybe looking to get around the ballpark of Deshaun Watson who got $230 million guaranteed from the Browns. Baltimore may just not trust Lamar anymore to sign him long term and look toward someone else.