Lamar Jackson was made available Tuesday afternoon, but it doesn’t appear as though many teams around the NFL are biting.
Jackson was given the non-exclusive franchise tag by the Ravens, which means the superstar quarterback can sign an offer sheet with a different team. But after the news broke, the list of teams reportedly not interested in pursuing Jackson started to pile up. Even the Atlanta Falcons, who are poised to enter the 2023 NFL season with Desmond Ridder behind center, apparently don’t intend to pursue the 2019 league MVP.
The reported lack of suitors for Jackson was baffling to future Pro Football Hall of Famer J.J. Watt.
“Why are all of these teams so publicly ‘out’ on Lamar Jackson, an MVP winner in his prime at the most important position in the entire NFL? What am I missing here?” Watt tweeted Tuesday evening.
It should be noted that it would cost an arm and a leg to acquire Jackson and keep him on the roster moving forward. If Baltimore doesn’t match an offer sheet, it will receive two first-round picks from the team that manages to get Jackon to sign on the dotted line. And that will be a challenging task in itself, as the 26-year-old reportedly wants a deal similar to the fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract Deshaun Watson signed with the Cleveland Browns last year.
So it makes sense why a massive chunk of the league isn’t going after Jackson. That said, the two-time Pro Bowl selection’s market absolutely should be bigger than it apparently is.
