Ravens contract negotiations with Lamar Jackson have gone from bad to worse
You gotta talk about the Marj Jackson, Eric Dacosta, the general manager of the Ravens comes out, you listen to him, he does his press conference and you sit there and you go, this is the same, the same deal. Like he's talking about the same, like nothing's changed in six weeks. Like all this time they had to work on this, they've gotten nowhere with him. Hey, we like the player and I talked to him and blah, but there's no indication that they made any progress. I think it is now getting worse for the Ravens because Rashad Bateman, Eric Dacosta makes this comment and I'm gonna paraphrase here, but he's talking about the evaluation of wide receivers and he basically says, and I'm pretty close to the quote here. If, you know, if I knew the secret to that in terms of evaluating wide receivers in the draft, I would probably have better receivers. You suck at hearing that quote, you're like, that's gonna resonate.
Like there's some guys that are not gonna be thrilled about that. Well, Rashad Bateman, okay. First round pick in 2021 out of Minnesota, wide receiver has had some injury issues there, was not happy with it. So he quotes that tweet, quote tweets about it and basically just rips to Costa and says, I'm tired of you blaming the wide receivers and eight, number eight, Lamar Jackson. So he literally claps back on the GM and inserts Lamar Jackson's name into the clapback, which I think is a big deal because it shows you there's this coalescing of, there's a group inside there, they're forming against the Ravens management. And I think it's Lamar and I think it's those receivers. I think they're sick of the, I think they're like, look, Greg Roman was doing what he was doing.
If you want to blame somebody for the way the offense function, blame the guy who you just mutually parted ways with, fired, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, so he's pissed off and on top of that, the NFLPA puts out these, Jory Epstein and I talked about, put out these report cards on teams. The strength coach of the Ravens, who they have now parted company with, it was great in F minus and the NFLPA made a point to say, not only was it 32nd dead last in the league, but there was a pretty significant divide between 31st and 32nd. Like they were last and they were last by a mile. So it's no surprise that they got rid of this guy. That comes out. You had a couple of former Ravens players come out after it, start saying on Twitter, my career was ruined there.
Here are the injuries that I suffered. And I think the reason why that's also bad in the Lamar Jackson situations, because Lamar finished the season refusing basically to go back and play. We thought is this contract related. I think it's fair now to wonder if Lamar is in that group who are like, I don't trust this team with injuries. It's all bad. Every indicator if this were a stock, okay, this is the stock market and we're watching it. This is like blockbuster.
Okay. It's like, we're like, wait, what's wrong with the videotape movie industry? And then I was like, a couple of years later, like, oh my God, why do I still have a blockbuster stock? Like this is a total disaster. That's what this feels like right now. It's nuts. I get it. But the one thing to cost us said that I really, I thought was very interesting is you don't want to live in a world without a quarterback in the end. Everybody says that.
Everybody says that. But it's true, Charles, because at some point if we're going to say, this isn't going to work out, the Ravens Lamar Jackson. All right, you have to answer for me. Anybody who wants to trade them to Atlanta or Carolina or the Raiders or wherever, you got to answer for me. Who was the Baltimore Ravens starting quarterback week one? Okay, I got your answers. Tyler Huntley, I got you. You've moved on from a 26 year old MVP elite quarterback to be in the 30s as your second quarterback.
Okay. He left out the important part, Frank. You said you don't want to live in a world without a quarterback. He didn't say you don't want to live in a world without a $250 million guaranteed quarterback. He didn't say that. Okay. Do you think the Arizona Cardinals? Do you think the Arizona Cardinals are sitting there right now going, geez, man, we didn't want to live without our $45 million APY quarterback and that God, man, we don't, we don't want to live in that world.
Do you think the Packers are sitting there going, God, man, we really couldn't live without Aaron Rodgers and that, you know, $50 million APY salary and then the $60 million balloon payment he's having such a hard time taking. Do you think the Denver Broncos are sitting there going, oh, geez, man, we couldn't live without our $200 million guaranteed money. If the Ravens are at the Ravens are like, we're not going to pay this guy. Fine. But you're still setting your friend. Like these are the quarterbacks. Everybody covet at just voluntarily move on from him at 26 years old.
The stakes are higher. The stakes are higher than ever. You got again, you got to answer who is your weak one quarter. Okay. You have to answer that maybe if you're, again, if you're answers, highly huntly. It's like, what have we done? Frankie. It sets you off in that Broncos, 2016 to current path, right? Frank, Frank, you told me that all last season you were like, you were clearly happy for the answer to who is your starter in week one for the Broncos.
You would have been happy if it was anybody else other than Russell Wilson. And so are all those Broncos fans. I don't think it's a mistake to pay Lamar. I do think he's a lead. Okay, fair. I think he's totally fine. I think that I thought it was a mistake to pay Kyler.
We talked about that. I didn't think he was ever worth that. I think the Giants are going down a really, really bad road with Daniel Jones. Russ turned out to be a mistake. I didn't call that. I thought I didn't think it was. I can't sit here and tell you paying Lamar Jackson is a mistake.
What I'm saying is, unless the Falcons just go to you and say, here's a blank check, whatever, however many picks you want for the next five years, we don't care. Unless you can offer like that, I'm not moving off from Lamar Jackson. I'm saying, look, we got the franchise tag. Let's still work together and figure this out. We know you're bad. We are at an impasse, but you're not going anywhere until we absolutely possibly have to give you up because you are a 26-year-old former MVP quarterback. Those things don't come along very often on Yannapal.
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