If the Ravens are truthfully totally intent on signing Lamar long term, then they are already fools for not signing him last year.
If they wait for Herbert and especially Burrow to sign, Lamar's will be way higher than it would have been at the beginning of last offseason. That's just simply the way the NFL works.
Lamar might want to wait for their contracts and force them to make him play on the tag. They're prepared for it. They've for a couple of years been making sure they can tag him. But that's such a BS strategy. Destroys this team's window.
Lamar is probably not going to have the longest career in the NFL. Probably not gonna be playing at 40. Maybe not even at 35. The goal is to have LJ8 in his prime and win as many SBs as you can with your transcendent talent.
But no, they're pretending like he's gonna play forever and we need to be "competitive" for the next 10 years with him
Will it though? What's the real risk to the Ravens if Burrow or Herbert sign first? They're going to sign for $51M a year, and now the Ravens have to pay $52M a year instead of $50M a year?
I actually think its a great strategy for the Ravens to wait and see what happens with these guys. For one key reason... what's the guaranteed money going to be?
I've asked this question all offseason, and I've yet to hear a single person answer it that involves Lamar coming out favorable... IF Burrow signs first, and its not a fully guaranteed contract, what leg does Lamar have to stand on to ask for one?
Perhaps this is in the premise of thinking Lamar is asking for fully gtd, and there's obviously a huge contingent of Lamar slurpers who think he shouldn't take a dime less than the Watson deal, including guaranteed money.
But if Burrow doesn't take fully gtd, what's Lamar's argument? Nobody thinks Lamar should get paid more than Burrow. Lamar's mother doesn't think he should get paid more than Burrow. Joe Burrow is an objectively better QB than Lamar.
So at the end of the day, what are the Ravens risking? If Joe signs for $275M and its fully GTD, Lamar gets it too, and he gets what everybody wanted him to get to begin with. And if Burrow can't get fully gtd from a franchise he brought back from death, Lamar sure as shit isn't. Not from the Ravens, the Jets, the Falcons, or anybody else. The desperation just isn't there.
If I'm Lamar's camp, its a huge, huge, huge risk to sign after Burrow if the Watson treatment is what I seek. I have a 0% chance of getting it if Burrow doesn't.