2023 NFL offseason thread

The market is supposed to settle all of that. I don't think missing 11 1/2 of the last 23 games offers much leverage.

 

The Jones contract isn't that bad if you look at it as -- they picked up his fifth-year option after the fact and they franchise tagged him twice two years early. That's about 116 of the 160 total and you'd be paying him one year, 42 million for an actual free agency year, which would be his 29-year-old season.

 

No NFL teams want to acquire Lamar Jackson and the reason why seems painfully obvious

I think this is a little quick to assume no other team will pay Jackson, but that would be one way to make sure the Watson deal remains an outlier.

 

No team will pay Jackson what he wants, which is that Watson deal. Now you want three years for $135 million and it's all guaranteed? Line forms to the left.

 

Della is right. A shorter term deal for all guaranteed money is the way out of the impasse, and why the Ravens haven't already tried to sell that by pointing out to Jackson it gives him another bite at the apple escapes me.

 

It's possible they have, he isn't interested, and so they're letting the market speak to his value to show that he's not getting a Watson deal from anyone else, either.

 

It’s possible they tried, but he wanted the years too.

It is also very likely that short term or long term, the Ravens don’t want to make a guaranteed contract a thing. They want to make Watson an outlier and preserve a system that allows owners a way out of paying players everything they’re owed.

I will say short of a rogue executive coming forward and confirming it, we’ll never know if there was a back room deal to prevent other teams from doing what the Browns did. But this reeks of collusion. It is in every owner’s interest to not go along with any fully guaranteed deal. The Ravens refusing to do it and then teams confirming they will not go after Jackson even when they clearly could use him is fishy.

 

Maybe his injury history gives the teams pause, not some grand conspiracy. Maybe.

 

Why do NFL reporters and talking heads like Schefter continue to pretend that Aaron Rodgers might choose to retire? He’s not walking away from $60M.

 

Collusion would mean they all spoke and agreed not to give out such a deal. I don't think it is as organized as all that. I'm sure they haven't been shy in their criticisms of the Watson deal. They have also heard the critics of the deal from the outside, especially after Watson played so poorly once his suspension ended. The trade and contract don't look good now. The same is true of Murray's big contract. Maybe the owners just learned from seeing how those deals are working out for their teams.

 

Given that they are not officially able to speak with Lamar yet and therefore don’t know his actual demands, it is certainly odd that a couple of teams which really need QBs would rule themselves out of the running within minutes of the tag announcement

 

I have often found it useful that when NFL (or any other pro sports) franchises say "we're not interested in Player X" to add the word "yet" to the end of the sentence. I should add that if the Panthers and Falcons were sincere in dismissing Jackson, the happiest people in the league should be the Bears' management, because that drives the price of their number one pick even higher.