It’s been more than a month now since Lamar Jackson requested a trade, but the 26-year-old is still a member of the Baltimore Ravens with the draft now just a week away.
Last month, Jackson announced in a Twitter thread that he asked the Ravens for a trade on Mar. 2. A few days after the request, Baltimore placed the franchise tag on Jackson, thus preventing him from entering free agency.
If the Ravens are leaning toward trading Jackson, the move would ideally come ahead of next Thursday’s draft in Kansas City. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell proposed quite the blockbuster trade scenario that would see the Ravens receive a massive return for the 2019 league MVP.
In the exercise, Barnwell shared a hypothetical trade scenario for all 31 picks in the first round of this year’s draft. He then put forward the idea of the Ravens sending Jackson and the No. 22 pick to the Houston Texans in exchange for the No. 2 and No. 73 picks plus a 2024 conditional fourth-rounder:
“In this scenario, Jackson would sign his franchise tag before inking a long-term deal for one more guaranteed dollar than Deshaun Watson got as part of his trade to Cleveland. New Houston offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik was most recently the passing game coordinator in San Francisco, where Kyle Shanahan had installed a quarterback run-friendly attack for Trey Lance before the second-year passer suffered an ankle injury last season. Jackson would be a big bet for the Texans, but as they try to rebuild trust with their fan base and compete in the AFC South, his floor and ceiling both project to be better than those of this draft’s quarterbacks. Houston would also still have two first-rounders — Nos. 12 and 22 — and could use one of them on a much-needed wide receiver to help Jackson.
By both the Johnson and Stuart charts, this would value Jackson as being worth a top-10 pick. It’s not two first-rounders for the Ravens, but this might be better than two future first-round picks from a team that likely projects to pick in the 20s in 2024 and 2025. This deal is more implausible than most of the others in this article (which is saying a lot), but there’s a universe in which it makes sense for both parties.”
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The Carolina Panthers hold the first overall pick in the draft, having moved up via trade with the Chicago Bears. They’re widely expected to take either Alabama quarterback Bryce Young or Ohio State QB C.J. Stroud.
Assuming Houston doesn’t trade the No. 2 pick, they’ll likely take whoever remains between Young and Stroud. But crazier things have happened, so one can’t fully rule out the idea of Jackson getting traded before or during the 2023 draft.
The 2023 draft will be held from Apr. 27 to 29 at Kansas City’s Union Station.
