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Lamar Jackson
- Thread starter Ice Bowl
- Start date
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Depends on who you ask. Multiple reporters who saw the original deal verified Schefter's account. The $133M is the only number both Lamar and everybody else agreed to, and it was the gtd at signing amount.
Bottom line... I don't think anybody really believe that the only contract offer the Ravens have made to Lamar is 3/133, fully gtd. That doesn't jive with literally anything the FO has said or has been reported by others.
Yeah from what I've gathered, it sounds like the 3/$133M offer was one variation of an offer, essentially out to say if you want fully guaranteed, this is what we can do.
The only offer we know for absolute certain was the 5 year, $260M offer with $133M guaranteed and between $160-180M of total guarantees. Sounds like additional offers have been made with only the total guarantees rising up a bit, but no confirmation of that.
Tank
Hall of Famer
Why would we increase the $133 mil. at signing? That's $23 mil. more than Hurts.
Oh i agree for sure and i was gonna type something similar.. i think lamar just want more fully guaranteed and not all that “ if” money.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
I wouldn't voluntarily. Just depends on if Lamar comes in with a counter himself that bridges the gap. I have no issue with paying a little more, but not going to negotiate against ourselves, obviously.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Right, which this contract isn't good for him, because the fully guaranteed portion is substantially less than what he was already offered.
Not saying I'd offer it, but let's just say Lamar comes back and counters with $150M. If I'm the Ravens, I'm probably taking it just to end the nightmare negotiations. Paying above market but not absurdly so.
BoredMarine13
Ravens Ring of Honor
Why can’t we just pay him 175 million guaranteed at signing with no additional funds for injury? That’s all he seems to care about
Guessing cap structure reasons. Those roster bonuses are easy to kick out and convert for cap reasons. If you give him $175M as a signing bonus, that gets prorated and the only thing you can touch is the base salary at that point.
Tank
Hall of Famer
I think it would be different had Lamar not missed the last quarter of the past 2 seasons, or had a bunch of playoff success. I just don't know how anyone could justify paying any amount above market. Hurts is a couple of years younger, hasn't had the serious injury history.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Because there's no reason to?
Tank
Hall of Famer
Ray was much different, a FA without the tag, and getting close to the end of his career.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Well, to be clear, the gtd $ at signing isn't just one bonus. It's bonuses and salaries combined. Nobody is giving a $175M signing bonus. I don't think anybody has come close to a $100M signing bonus. Not saying you don't know this, but more educational for the group.
Kyler's deal had $103.3M gtd at signing. That's comprised of:
$29.0M signing bonus
2022 base salary = $965K
2023 base salary = $2M
2023 roster bonus = $36M
2024 salary = $35.3M
So his gtd at signing $ is spread over three years, in the form of $65M in two different bonuses, and $38.3M in base salaries.
Wilson's deal had $124M gtd at signing: That's comprised of:
$50M signing bonus
2022 base salary = $2M
2022 roster bonus = $5M
2023 base salary = $8M
2023 option bonus = $20M
2024 salary = $17M
2024 option bonus = $22M
With most of these long term deals, the gtd at signing $ is the only thing that's fully guaranteed, and its almost always paid out over 3 years. Hence the emphasis from Lamar on 3/133. It means even in the structure that Schefter reported, which was 5/260, the $133M is what's fully guaranteed, and what he would make in the first three years.
I think people tend to confused that the guaranteed at signing $ = what X player gets when he signs. That's rarely how it works. He's not getting $133M in a lump sum when he puts pen to paper. NFL Owners are rich and so are teams, but no Owner is going to pay out a bonus up front that large.
BoredMarine13
Ravens Ring of Honor
Hmmm 175 would be difficult to effectively spread out over 3 years
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Interesting here. Not sure if its really how it went, but basically idea is the Eagles used the offer the Ravens made Lamar as a baseline for the Hurts deal...
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
From a cap perspective, it would spread longer than that. That's just cash the player gets in that period of time.
Bonuses can be prorated for either 5 years or the length of the deal, whichever is shorter.
For example, with Wilson, he gets $124M in the first three years.
His cap hits in those years are $17M, $22M, and $35.4M.
So he gets $124M, but in the same timeframe, the team only charges $74.4M in cap.
I personally think that's backloaded a little too much for my liking, as his cap hit from '24 to '25 jumps by $20M. But plenty of deals look like this.
Yeah I should have been more detailed there. Would imagine in that scenario, $175M is tied across 3-5 years - signing bonus (length of contract) and base salaries (years 1-3). Just gets hard to move money around later in the life of the contract. That's why those roster bonuses are so popular... really easy to take that money, pay it out at the same time, but lengthen the cap hit by converting it to a signing bonus instead.