“I am not giving him a fully guaranteed deal,” Stephen A. Smith seemingly accuses Lamar Jackson of asking more money than he deserves just to make a statement
The Baltimore Ravens are expected to place a franchise tag on Lamar Jackson next season
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Lamar Jackson is currently one of the best young quarterbacks in the league. There are plenty of teams in the league that would love to have a QB like Jackson to lead their franchise. However, the Ravens are not willing to pay what Jackson’s asking to continue being the signal-caller of the Baltimore-based football team. Amidst this situation, NFL analyst Stephen A. Smith chimed in to give his take on the contract extension drama.
During a recent episode of his show First Take on ESPN, Stephen A. Smith claims that he would not give the Ravens QB Lamar Jackson a fully guaranteed contract due to injury concerns.
“I would not give him a fully guaranteed deal either,” said Smith in a recent episode of First Take. “He’s missed the last five games of the last two seasons. Alright, the best ability is availability but also reliability. He misses on those two categories. That itself compromises the ability for you to walk around with your chest stuck out talking about you deserve fully-guaranteed dollars.”
While Smith acknowledged that a top-tier quarterback like Lamar Jackson does deserve a contract of around 50 million dollars a year he also said that Jackson shouldn’t expect more than that just because the Browns were desperate enough to give Deshaun Watson a huge guaranteed contract.
Stephen A. Smith believes Lamar Jackson is expecting a contract similar to Deshaun Watson
ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith, in a recent episode of his show, seemingly accused the Ravens All-Pro quarterback Lamar Jackson of asking for a huge guaranteed contract just to make a statement.
“When you look at Lamar Jackson, he appears, I don’t know about this, he appears to be one of those guys ‘on principle I’m trynna make the statement, I want more guaranteed dollars than Deshaun Watson’,” said Smith about the former league MVP
Furthermore, Smith also advised the Ravens quarterback to just take the money he deserves instead of trying to make a statement. “Listen, you’re (Jackson) worth $200 million guaranteed in today’s market. If Baltimore offers you that, that should be good enough,” said Smith on First Take.
The Cleveland Browns definitely messed up the quarterbacks’ market when they gave Deshaun Watson 5 year $230 million fully guaranteed contract. Now, every QB wants similar pay. After that contract, even average QBs like NY Giants‘ Daniel Jones are asking for contracts in similar pay grades.
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Aravind Raj
(2075 Articles Published)