Lamar Jackson turned down $133 million in fully guaranteed funds.

It was previously impossible to determine whether Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson should have accepted the best long-term contract offer the team made, rather than playing out the final year of his rookie contract for $23 million.

According to Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com, Jackson turned down a six-year contract (i.e., a five-year extension) worth $133 million guaranteed at signing.

That is more than Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray ($103.3 million) and Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson ($124 million) received in full guarantees on longer (seven-year) contracts signed in recent weeks.

Over the course of six years, Jackson “could have earned” more than $290 million. According to Mortensen, the new-money average would have exceeded the $48.5 million paid to Wilson by the Broncos.

(Wilson’s contract was reported to have a new-money average of $49 million; however, as explained here, failing to include the value of the 17th-game checks for 2022 and 2023 in the old/new-money comparison reduced the average to $48.5 million.)

It’s unclear how much of the $290 million would have been considered Jackson’s base contract.

He’ll earn $24.35 million this year, including the 17th-game bonus. Subtraction from $290 million and division by five yields a total of $53.13 million.

Thus, Jackson would have had to meet certain criteria in order to earn the kind of money that would have propelled him to $290 million.

According to Mortensen, the agreement also included massive de-escalators ($2.5 million per year) contingent on Jackson participating in the majority of the offseason program.

Jackson missed the team’s voluntary April-June sessions and practices in 2022, despite being mostly, if not entirely, present in his first four seasons.

The reporting contains some gaps that make a thorough evaluation of the offer impossible.

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