Lamar Jackson’s latest injury has pushed his future with the Ravens into the spotlight, and the question hanging over Baltimore now is a big one: has he already played his last game for the team?
Jackson is dealing with a right hand injury and has been placed on injured reserve. With the Ravens sitting in last place in the AFC North, there’s a real chance he won’t be back on the field again this season. If that’s how it plays out, the offseason could quickly become about his contract instead of his recovery.
That contract is the reason this situation feels so delicate. Jackson is in the fourth year of a five-year, $260 million deal, but the numbers get messy fast. In 2027, he is scheduled to count more than $84 million against Baltimore’s salary cap, and releasing him would leave the Ravens with over $74 million in dead cap.
That leaves Baltimore with a problem it can’t ignore. The team has to do something with Jackson’s deal before that cap hit becomes a burden. If the Ravens and Jackson can’t agree on an extension, the options could come down to a trade or a release.
A trade looks more likely than cutting him outright, largely because of the dead cap damage Baltimore would still absorb. Jackson is also in his prime, which makes him a more realistic trade candidate than a player the team would simply move on from. But there’s another wrinkle: Jackson has a no-trade clause, so he would control where he goes next.
The Ravens could explore trading Lamar Jackson this offseason if the two sides fail to reach a contract extension, per @RapSheet. Jackson carries an $84.34M cap hit in 2027 and holds both no-trade and no-tag clauses, meaning he would have to approve any trade. Although, the Ravens remains optimistic about reaching a new deal to keep the 2x MVP in Baltimore for years to come.
If Baltimore did work out a trade, the team would still be stuck with a similar dead cap hit, while the new club would inherit a $52 million cap number. That would give an acquiring team some flexibility, even if the expectation would still be to hammer out an extension. The contract language also means no team can tag him, which would send Jackson to free agency.
The Ravens have made it clear they want to keep him. In January, owner Steve Bisciotti said he hoped a new deal could get done in the offseason.
"We want another window, and Lamar knows that," he said, via ESPN. "I think that he's amenable to doing something that mirrors the last deal he did, although the annual number will be a little higher. But I'm hoping that it's plug a new number in the same contract he signed last year and move on."
That never happened, and now Jackson’s future in Baltimore is far less certain. The Ravens want him back, but Jackson has long been a difficult player to negotiate with, and that could push the franchise toward a fresh start if the two sides can’t find common ground.
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