On Monday, Lamar Jackson revealed in a series of tweets that he had asked the Ravens to trade him earlier this month. Days later, the organization placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on the superstar quarterback.
No team has placed bids for him. One thought could be is that teams are concerned about his longetivity.
On Tuesday night, Jackson took to Twitter to defend himself from questions about his injury history and why he didn’t play down the stretch of the 2022 campaign after suffering a PCL injury. He also took issue with the notion that he didn’t play because he didn’t have a new contract.
“I don’t remember me sitting out on my guys week 1 vs jets To week 12 vs Broncos,” Jackson tweeted. “How come all of a sudden I sit out because of money in which I could’ve got hurt at anytime within that time frame. When we know the Super Bowl been on my mind since April 2018.”
He added that playing injured would have only hurt his teammates.
“Let’s get real. I rather have a 100% PCL than go out there and play horrible forcing myself to put my guys in a bad situation now that’s selfish to me,” he tweeted.
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Jackson does not have an agent, so social media has become the mode the Ravens quarterback has chosen to directly get his side of the story out, including notice of a trade request.
Jackson missed five games each of the past two seasons and that includes a wild-card loss to the Bengals. The Ravens, having hopes he would return last year, did not put him on injured reserve, but the injury never got to a place that would allow him to play.
Responding to a question about the injury, Jackson said, “90% is 100% to me, I wasn’t there at all.”
Any team can sign Jackson to an offer sheet with the Ravens having the right to match. If the Ravens refuse to match, the team that signs Jackson would have to send two first-round picks to Baltimore.
As we have seen, teams would perhaps prefer to not part with a 2023 first-round pick so close to draft night.
