Lamar Jackson Rumors: Trade Interest Hasn’t Picked Up, Teams Expect Ravens to Tag QB

Despite being one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL for the past five seasons, Lamar Jackson’s trade market isn’t as robust as you might think right now.

Per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, most teams are expecting the Baltimore Ravens will use the exclusive franchise tag on Jackson and will wait to see how long-term contract talks play out before they attempt to make a trade offer for the 2019 NFL MVP.

“And it could become a standoff, because I wouldn’t expect him to sign the tag for a while,” one AFC executive said. “And they will be so far apart in the guaranteed money.”

There has been some discussion about which version of the franchise tag the Ravens will use to prevent Jackson from becoming an unrestricted free agent.

NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said on The Pat McAfee Show earlier this week the “sense” is Jackson will receive the exclusive franchise tag.

The exclusive tag guarantees a player the higher total between the average of the five highest-paid players at the position or 120 percent of his previous year’s salary. The non-exclusive tag includes the same guaranteed money, but the non-exclusive tag allows the player to negotiate with other teams.

If the Ravens were to use the non-exclusive tag and Jackson receives an offer they don’t want to match, they would receive two first-round picks as compensation.

The non-exclusive tag would be redundant because a quarterback of Jackson’s caliber at the age of 26 would almost certainly be traded for more than two first-round picks. The exclusive tag gives the Ravens more time to figure out if they can close the gap with the two-time Pro Bowler on guaranteed money.

Fowler noted the Ravens and Jackson “could possibly” be as much as $100 million apart in guaranteed money, and trade talks would be more likely to pick up closer to the draft if it becomes clear no long-term agreement will be reached.

It will be interesting to see if Jackson might have lost some of his negotiating leverage. He has missed the final five regular-season games in each of the past two seasons due to injuries.

Head coach John Harbaugh seemed to get frustrated over the final month of this season whenever he got asked about Jackson’s injury. He did tell reporters in January there was a “200 percent chance” Jackson is with the Ravens next season.

Injury concerns aside, Jackson remains one of the most dynamic offensive players in the NFL. He threw for 2,242 yards, ran for 764 yards and accounted for 20 touchdowns in 12 starts this season.