Only if Lamar Jackson continues playing at an MVP level.
Patrick Mahomes’ rookie year saw him wait his turn behind Alex Smith, followed up with an MVP season, then landed on the cover of Madden 20. Top it off with a Super Bowl title in year three. He’s going to enter year four with an insane contract extension which I’m going to discuss. The Chiefs can get out without having to pay much of it if things go sideways fast. Still, the most guaranteed money in football history by a mile.
Lamar Jackson waited as a rookie until Joe Flacco got hurt. Followed that up with an MVP season. Lands on the cover of Madden 21. Year three is TBD. If he trends the way of Mahomes, brings Baltimore a title, Jackson has no reason not to expect a similar payday this time next year. Ravens GM Eric DeCosta has already shown to be unafraid to lock in players before their contract year where they can sniff free agency.
The difference is Jackson makes magic happen with his legs, while Mahomes might be the league’s first 6,000 yard or 60 TD passer one day. Conventional wisdom would tell us that legs go out before arms. But we don’t have to dwell on that for now, considering the uniqueness of the Mahomes contract, Jackson should earn something similar.
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The Chiefs got creative in their approach as we’ve seen done for some quarterbacks as the price tags for the all-important position keeps sky rocketing. As we know in football, guaranteed money is all that really matters in a contract. Over the Cap provides the Mahomes contract details for us.
So, here is the meat and potatoes of the 10-year/$450M extension, worth up to $503M with incentives. It starts with 2020-2022 salaries fully guaranteed, plus a $10M signing bonus bringing the guaranteed number up to roughly $63.08M. On March 20th of 2021, 2023’s $40.45M salary becomes guaranteed. On March 20th of 2022, 2024’s $37.95M salary becomes guaranteed. In other words, if Patrick Mahomes is still the Chiefs quarterback 21 months from now, he will have earned $141.48M in that time frame.
2023 through 2025 are key years as they are a break in the pattern of guarantees. On March 20th of 2023, just the roster bonus of $38.9M in 2025 becomes guaranteed. On March 20th of 2024, the other portion of the 2025 salary (base + workout bonus) totaling only (heh, only) $3.05M is guaranteed. Basically, every year from 2025 to the end of the contract, the year following the current year becomes guaranteed. It’s not listed, but the dead money figure will be adjusted each year based on the salary guarantee that gets triggered. Meaning that if 2024 would be his last season in Kansas City, the dead money hit would be the $41.95M from 2025 that was already guaranteed, even though is isn’t showing up yet on the ledger.
2024 is the year to circle. It’s five years into the now 12-year contract. It’s the age 29 season with age 30 around the corner. At the end of 2024 he will have earned $186M in five years, pretty much all of it guaranteed. He will have $294.2M still to earn over the next seven years, assuming the contract plays out, which they rarely do. The Chiefs will know if the investment has been worth it, and will it be worth it going forward, while estimating having not cost more than 17.6% of salary cap space in any of those five years.
Call it 5/$186M, a $37.2M average per year, rather than 12/$480M, a $40M average per year. Chiefs fans should be happy about this, and Ravens fans should hope if Jackson’s star continues to rise to Mahomes level, that a contract for him is structured similarly. It’s actually team, and player friendly. The player benefits by making it harder for the team to cut him because he is guaranteed the following years money. The team benefits because that far down the line, it isn’t a “salary cap hell” situation to have a dead money hit in the $30-$40M range for a year, or spread out over two years. It’s also a decent way to dress up a realistic five year deal as a lifetime 12 year deal.
In summary:
When building a possible Lamar Jackson extension, the key points are to average around a 15% salary cap hit each year in the first five years of said extension. Ability to take it one year at a time after that where Jackson is paid handsomely, and the team can also get out of the deal any time after five years in and take the tough, but not catastrophic dead money hit for the year. Five years mirrored in a 12-year/blow the world away dollar amount, seems like a safe investment, given Lamar Jackson and his legs will only be 28 years old by then.
I know you see that $59.95M cap number in 2027 of the Mahomes deal staring at you. But keep in mind that the salary cap could easily be $300M or more by then, and a $60M cap hit is 20% of the cap in that case. It could be 15% of the cap if the cap rises higher than we think. At that point as well, Mahomes is 32 (Jackson would be 31), they are young enough to extend once again to spread out high cap numbers for over the hill veterans into their late 30s if they are still the gold standard of NFL quarterbacks.
18 months ago, I wrote that teams need to stop paying QBs based on precedent. Invest draft capital and rookie contracts into young and capable or invest top dollar into elite talent. Pictured in that article are Mahomes and Jackson, just like this one. No doubt Mahomes is elite. Jackson is on the right track but has another year to prove 2019, wasn’t some fluke. Some form of regression should put a Jackson extension on hold. But if he brings home the games top prize this year, it becomes time to get it done. That being said, Lamar Jackson, today, is the only QB I’d consider going into a contract similar to Mahomes with. Other names coming up like Deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott, I would not. They could fall into the dreaded “precedent category” with guys like Andy Dalton, Derek Carr, Matt Stafford, [gulp] Joe Flacco, and the like.
Ravens Analyst
Mike was born on the Eastern Shore, raised in Finksburg, and currently resides in Parkville. In 2009, Mike graduated from the Broadcasting Institute of Maryland. Mike became a Baltimore City Fire Fighter in late 2010. Mike has appeared as a guest on Q1370, and FOX45. Now a Sr. Ravens Analyst for BSL, he can be reached at mike.randall@baltimoresportsandlife.com.