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Lamar Jackson, the star quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens, has joined the team at minicamp despite being embroiled in a contract dispute. The two sides are said to be hopeful that an agreement will be reached at some point soon.
A host of fans and analysts, including Louis Riddick, believe that the All-Pro quarterback should stay off the football field until he has a new deal in place. Here's what Riddick had to say on a recent episode of "Get Up":
"I would be very, very reluctant to step on the football field and do anything, you know, substantial at the risk of suffering some kind of injury that would impair my ability to continue to play going forward. Now, obviously, you have insurance protection that can protect you against catastrophic injuries."
He added that Jackson should continue to stay away from the field until his financial future is secured.
"I think the one thing we have said numerous times on various different shows is that the one avenue that players always have in terms of contract negotiations to kind of tilt in your favor is to withhold services."
"With Lamar, we know for sure that timing is on his side and leverage is on his side simply because Deshaun Watson signed that ridiculous deal in Cleveland."
Will Lamar Jackson begin the 2022 season with a new contract in hand?
The Cleveland Browns signed former Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson to a ground-breaking five-year, $230 million deal this offseason. The move seemingly benefitted the franchise in two ways.
The first is that Watson is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. He led the NFL with 4,823 passing yards in 2020, his most recent season in the league.
The second is that the deal forces other teams to go outside of their monetary comfort zones in order to sign their franchise quarterbacks. Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti recently lamented this very fact.
Here is what he had to say about the contract given to Watson by the Browns:
"It's like, 'Damn, I wish they hadn't guaranteed the whole contract.' I don't know that he should've been the first guy to get a fully guaranteed contract. To me, that's something that is groundbreaking, and it'll make negotiations harder with others. But it doesn't necessarily mean that we have to play that game, you know? We shall see."
Unfortunately for Bisciotti, the market for paying quarterbacks has risen drastically thanks to the Cleveland Browns. For Lamar Jackson, his defense could surely be that he has had a better career than Watson, having been named the 2019 NFL MVP.
Watson's off-field behavior has kept him out of the league for an entire season. But the Browns still spent a truckload of money to bring him in, which is another aspect Jackson could use to his benefit.
Overall, it seems likely that at some point in time, the Ravens will have to pay their star quarterback in line with what an NFL MVP should be earning in the current climate.
