It is beyond reasonable to wonder out loud how truthful Ravens leadership (specifically in this case, head coach John Harbaugh and general manager Eric DeCosta) was being in its season-ending news conference on Jan. 19.
You have perhaps heard me mention that my interest in attending Ravens press conferences waned after owner Steve Bisciotti famously said the team would not be in the quarterback market in 2018, noting they had “bigger fish to fry” just months before drafting Lamar Jackson. Bisciotti’s news conferences were the ones I had still found more direct than theater to that point. That was the one that did it for me.
To be clear, I do not suffer from misguided feelings of self-importance. I realize the Ravens (ironically) actually do indeed have “bigger fish to fry” than providing full transparency to either myself or the media at large or even the fan base in general. Bisciotti didn’t want other NFL teams to know the Ravens were considering the future league MVP. If he had been honest, it might have jeopardized their draft night strategy. I understand it. I’ve shifted my occasional “reporting” on the team to information I can obtain from team and league sources instead.
This is my long-winded way of telling you that I won’t be labeling you a conspiracy theorist or “truther” for questioning whether Harbaugh and DeCosta were being completely forthcoming or simply trying to craft the narrative they want the public to see. To their credit (and I mean that), we can’t fully know. That 2018 draft is sparkling proof of how capable they are of holding their cards close to their chest. The Roquan Smith trade is a more recent example of another.
I wish Ravens leadership was willing to teach a class on how to keep a secret. I’m in a place as a parent where if I, say, let my kids watch a couple of minutes of a “John Wick” movie just because I have it on the background, the most likely way my wife will end up finding out is if I say something like, “Hey, Mom doesn’t need to know this.”
The end-of-season news conference provided exactly as many answers as you choose to believe it did. Ravens fans who want to see Jackson stick around were probably encouraged by the duo’s continued optimism about getting a deal done with the five-year veteran. Those who think the team should move on from Jackson because of injury or the contract dispute or lack of faith in his ability or trade opportunity or racism or whatever probably took solace in DeCosta’s unwillingness to answer when PressBox’s Bo Smolka asked if the team would entertain the possibility of trading its signal-caller.
So what did we actually learn? If we’re being honest we probably learned more from the press release that came ahead of the news conference (announcing Greg Roman’s departure) than we did once the cameras were on. And it isn’t even certain that the dodginess of particular answers was a direct attempt at misdirection as it is that the Ravens don’t definitively know certain answers just yet.
For example, one of the more direct answers came when DeCosta was asked about Ben Powers. “My feeling is Ben is probably going to be sought after in free agency based on the way he played this year” at least sounds DeCostian for “he’s going to end up signing elsewhere.” But he can’t just say that directly because there’s almost certainly a number at which the Ravens would be comfortable bringing Powers back, and if the market doesn’t end up being what Powers expects it to be, perhaps he could end up back in Baltimore.
And again, that was one of the more direct answers!
Unless your last name is also Powers, you’re probably not quite as concerned about the versatile offensive lineman’s future as you are Jackson’s and you’re far more interested in whether I can decode the answers Harbaugh and DeCosta gave about him. And … not really.
Look, I’ve never found a team or league source who has told me the Ravens are more interested in trading Jackson than signing him. I do believe they are being honest about their continued interest in getting a deal done. The debate among the sources I’ve spoken to has always centered around how far the team is willing to go in doing a deal. When the Ravens say “it takes two to tango,” they are trying to shift the responsibility to Jackson. But if Jackson believes his contract request to be of fair-market value, he’d probably say the same of the team.
Save for a deal getting done shortly, the franchise tag appears to be a formality. And then the question becomes just how far apart the sides are. If the Ravens are going to reach a point where they feel like they have to trade Jackson, they’d want to do that before the NFL Draft to maximize their return and prevent teams from feeling like they’ve addressed their own quarterback issue via a pick. Jackson playing on the tag remains another option but sets up another year of awkwardness between the player and team.
Nothing said in last week’s press conference suggested to me that Jackson is either “200 percent” certain to be the team’s quarterback next year or certain to be gone. It is relevant that DeCosta said he didn’t think the contract was a factor in Jackson remaining sidelined through the wild-card loss to the Bengals, but even that isn’t a guaranteed truth. As illogical as the conclusion might be, if it were to be based in truth, the team would certainly not want to announce that to potential trade partners.
So yeah. I don’t think we really learned all that much. And I think we’ll have to keep being patient.
And despite all of that, I do appreciate the coach and the general manager taking the questions.
Photo Credits: Kenya Allen/PressBox