It sorta feels like the scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest just … stops running.
As exhausted as we were with the Lamar Jackson contract drama and as much as we wanted it to be settled because the idea of having Carson Wentz or Clayton Tune or the ghost of Kyle Boller starting under center next season, it was also … kinda exhilarating, no? Digesting Lamar Jackson information or measuring what a morsel of information about an unrelated subject might mean for Jackson became almost like a sport of its own.
So it’s kinda wild for it to just be over.
Obviously it’s a good thing for the Ravens. They got their deal done with the quarterback they always wanted to get a deal done with. They managed to avoid having to pay him an extraordinary sum of fully guaranteed (at signing) money. While there were awkward moments, the franchise overwhelmingly managed to save face.
So now what?
I mean, there’s the cornerback thing and how Todd Monken will use his new offensive weapons and there’s still not really a consistent edge rusher on the roster. But let’s move beyond that. I was making one of my regular hits on WHB Kansas City on my friend Soren Petro’s show “The Drive” last week when the host asked me a question I hadn’t even had a chance to consider in the immediacy of Jackson’s deal being announced.
“How will success be measured over the next five years for the Ravens and Lamar Jackson?”
It’s a fair question, of course. And one that probably feels even more relevant for Baltimore football fans considering the perception of the last significant quarterback contract the Ravens gave out. The belief among many both inside and outside of Baltimore is that the $120 million deal (LOL!) the team gave Joe Flacco in 2013 begat the downfall that eventually begat Jackson.
That analysis is somewhere between partially and completely off the mark, yet the thought still resonates among many both inside and outside of Baltimore. So is there some risk that a decade from now we’ll be viewing Jackson’s new $260 million pact in a more negative light a decade from now?
Of course there is.
But to wit, what is the appropriate measuring stick for success throughout the next five years? The easiest answer is obviously “Super Bowl title or bust,” right? That’s how success is supposed to measured every season. And to be fair, we’ve long held the Ravens to the standard of trying to win Super Bowl titles. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Ravens committed to Jackson for another five years not because they believe him to be “good enough” but genuinely because they believe they can win a Super Bowl with him under center.
Yet “Super Bowl or bust” still feels too strong. A few years ago my friend Kevin Van Valkenburg (then ESPN, now “No Laying Up”) tweeted the most poignant thing I’ve perhaps ever read about the subject.
I find myself repeating “even Dan Marino couldn’t win one” somewhat regularly. And while Marino might be the greatest QB to never win a Super Bowl, he’s far from the only good one to never hoist a Lombardi Trophy. Just since the turn of the millennium, five MVP quarterbacks (including Jackson so far) have failed to win a title. Jackson is the only of the five (Rich Gannon, Steve McNair, Cam Newton, Matt Ryan) to have not reached a Super Bowl (at least yet), however.
It is worth pointing out that Philip Rivers had a borderline Hall of Fame career without even as much as reaching a Super Bowl. Rivers was up against a trio of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger that made it difficult to break through. Jackson now has to get past not only the most overwhelmingly talented quarterback in NFL history (Patrick Mahomes) but also a burgeoning Murderer’s Row of top quarterbacks in the conference as well in Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence, with an additional cameo from Aaron Rodgers for at least the next year.
The Ravens are paying Jackson quite a healthy amount of money to try to navigate his way through this opposing quarterback minefield. But a sizable contract alone does not guarantee a breakthrough.
So the answer is perhaps more simplistic. Success during the next five years should be measured by whether the Ravens have simply been better in the postseason than they’ve been in Jackson’s first five seasons.
If the Ravens win just one playoff game between now and 2028, it’s a failure. Plain and simple. That doesn’t mean it will necessarily be Jackson’s fault or the fault of the contract or any of those things. But it will be a failure nonetheless. There is also no definitive number of playoff wins that declares success. The Ravens simply need to be a better and more consistent playoff team. If they are, they’ll have a great chance of at least stumbling into a Super Bowl appearance at some point.
And if not … it’ll still probably be better than watching Taylor Heinicke play quarterback.
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox