The Ravens return 19 of twenty-two starters from the team they fielded in Buffalo six months ago. This is usually good luck, because the team avoided too many expiring contracts to affect players, but that luck shifts pretty hard in the opposite direction in 2025 with Mark Andrews, Isaiah Likely, Tyler Linderbaum, Odafe Oweh, Travis Jones, Ar’Darius Washington, and lots of others heading into contract years.
All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton will likely be expecting a brand new deal sometime soon, as well. While the Ravens will certainly be working towards extension offers for a lot of them, there’s one player they’ve already claimed is on the forefront of their priorities for an extension.
So many quarterbacks have gotten latest deals within the last two years that Lamar Jackson‘s once-record-setting five-year, $260MM extension from 2023 looks like a distant memory. Due to recent latest deals for Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Jordan Love, Dak Prescott, Jared Goff, Tua Tagovailoa, Brock Purdy, and Josh Allen, Jackson’s formerly league-leading $52MM annual average salary has sunk all the way in which all the way down to Tenth-highest within the NFL. Head coach John Harbaugh indicated at league meetings that Jackson might be back on top soon.
While it could appear counterintuitive to prioritize a Jackson extension when he still has three years remaining on his contract and the Ravens have so many players on contracts that expire sooner, getting Jackson on a brand new deal could serve an important role in helping to team to secure a few of his talented teammates long-term. After this season, the ultimate two years of Jackson’s contract have him sporting an untenable cap hit of $74.5MM. As a way to help keep a few of his teammates in Baltimore, Jackson and the Ravens could pursue an extension in the style of the person who beat him out for MVP last yr.
Allen signed a six-year, $330MM extension in March despite the undeniable fact that his prior deal still had 4 years remaining. As an alternative of simply tacking on latest years with extra money to grant Allen his extension, the Bills essentially scrapped the terms of his original contract, giving their MVP a raise while keeping some flexibility within the team’s salary cap for years to return.
Allen and Buffalo could have paved the way in which for Jackson and lots of quarterbacks expecting raises in the long run. The Ravens could create $15.8MM of cap space in 2025 with an extension, and scrapping the terms of the unique deal could help significantly lower Jackson’s cap hit in 2026 and 2027, as well. The Ravens supposedly all the time planned to return to the negotiation table before reaching Jackson’s obscene cap hits, and the Bills could have provided them with the right solution.
One key point of difference could are available in the money and guarantee structures. Allen and the Bills selected a particularly straightforward method wherein Allen’s money receipts vary relatively little from yr to yr, starting from $52.5MM to $58MM. In contrast, Jackson’s current contract saw him receive $80MM in 12 months 1 and $31.79MM in 12 months 2. In Allen’s deal, his full guarantees come from a modest signing bonus ($56.75MM), his first- and second-year base salaries, and $34.5MM of his third-year base salary. Jackson pushed hard for a completely guaranteed deal in 2023 but ended up settling for a signing bonus of $72.5MM, his first- and second-year base salaries, and a few bonuses in Years 2 and three.
It’s hard to know just how much the Ravens could follow in Buffalo’s footsteps with a Jackson deal or simply how much Jackson is willing to follow in Allen’s. The team may love the structure, but Jackson might want extra money up front, like along with his last deal. Jackson might also see the worth in spreading out his money flow so as to be certain that the Ravens can proceed to surround him with talented players.
The time is true for Baltimore to attempt to make something occur, before training camp and the preseason take Jackson away from the table. Regardless, they’ll must get something done in the following nine months in the event that they need to avoid getting stuck with one player taking over a projected 24.26 percent of the team’s salary cap space in 2026.