Situations can get murky — and fast — when injury misfortune presents itself to a generational talent when he’s playing on the tail end of their rookie contract. In the blink of an eye last Sunday, Justin Jefferson pulled up after breaking on his fourth quarter route. He exited the game on Minnesota’s first drive in the fourth quarter and never returned. On Tuesday, the team announced that Jefferson’s hamstring injury would require them to put him on injured reserve, which means the Vikings will be without their best player for at least the next four games. At 1-4, Minnesota’s nightmare of a season got considerably scarier. And recent history has shown that this could be just the beginning of a dark, mysterious cloud hanging over the franchise.
In 2020, Lamar Jackson was eligible to sign an extension after his third NFL season. However, the former Heisman Trophy winner couldn’t come to terms on an agreement with the Baltimore Ravens. To the general public, it didn’t feel like much. After all, Jackson was still under team control for two more seasons, and Baltimore could issue franchise tags in 2023, 2024, and/or 2025. Fast forward to December 2021. The Ravens are sitting at 8-3 and in the hunt as a contender in the loaded AFC. But Jackson’s ankle sprain he suffered in the first half of Baltimore’s Week 14 divisional matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers caused him to miss the rest of the season. Baltimore would lose the rest of its games, finish with an 8-9 record, and miss the playoffs.
Jackson showed how valuable he is to Baltimore’s franchise at the most critical juncture of the season. Still, they couldn’t come to an agreement for an extension before Jackson’s fifth (and final) year of his rookie contract before 2022.
In eerily similar fashion, the Ravens and Jackson were rolling at 7-4 as they embarked on a Week 13 matchup against the lowly Denver Broncos last year. But Jackson’s first-quarter knee sprain forced him to the sidelines once again, and he didn’t return for the rest of the season. Only difference this time is that Baltimore strung together enough wins in Jackson’s absence to clinch a Wild Card berth at 10-7. But with Tyler Huntley at quarterback, the Ravens lost to their divisional rival Cincinnati Bengals on Wild Card Weekend.
After two consecutive years of having their star quarterback’s season cut short due to injury, it’s hard to argue with Baltimore’s reluctance to meet Jackson’s record-setting contract demands. By this point, the talking heads couldn’t get enough of their rampant speculation of Jackson playing elsewhere. Now the weekday talk shows are beginning to engage in similar talk regarding Jefferson and the Vikings.
The Ravens finally issued the non-exclusive franchise tag to Jackson last March, which allowed Jackson to negotiate with other teams. If Jackson agreed to an offer sheet with an opposing team, the Ravens would awarded right of first refusal. If Baltimore wasn’t interested in matching the contract that Jackson signed elsewhere, that team would be on the hook for two first-round picks in exchange for Jackson. But the situation never got going on that front. After two years of contractual hardball, the Ravens signed Jackson to a five-year, $260 million extension on the night of the 2023 draft.
It’s worth mentioning that Jackson has elected against having representation throughout his professional career. He never had to deal with the counsel of an agent through this multi-year standoff with the Ravens, whereas Jefferson is currently repped by three different CAA Sports agents.
I’m not going to speculate on whether Jackson could’ve or should’ve returned from his ankle and knee injuries suffered in 2021 and 2022. I’m also not going to sit here and speculate on the severity of Jefferson’s hamstring injury. On the bright side, Kevin O’Connell said earlier this week that Jefferson’s injury is not expected to be season-ending.
From Jefferson’s (and his representation’s) perspective, why subject yourself to potential additional injury while you’re still in the process of negotiating your record-setting contract — especially when the franchise is on the outside looking in on having their season amount to anything at the moment? As difficult as it is for the Vikings and their fans, sometimes the best way to demonstrate the actual worth of a generational talent is by reminding the organization what life is like without them, albeit temporarily. Which is kind of sort of what Jackson did with the Ravens in 2021 and 2022 (intentionally or unintentionally).
That’s not to say that Jefferson is by any means following in the same footsteps as Jackson’s during his much-publicized contract dispute with Baltimore. But whenever generational talents, injuries, and record-setting money are part of the equation, it’s best to have proper expectations established. Would Joe Burrow have played through his calf injury this season had he and the Bengals not come to an agreement on a mega-extension on the opening night of the 2023 season? Luckily for Cincinnati, we’ll never get an answer to that one.
Jackson’s contractual case study is still plenty fresh in the minds of the football world. It’s also probably fair to say that it has crossed the minds of Jefferson’s representation at CAA since their star client’s hamstring injury on Sunday. It remains to be seen whether Jefferson will return this season. But regardless of Jefferson’s playing status in 2023, until pen gets put to paper on Jefferson’s record-setting contract, Skoldiers should prepare themselves for the same nauseating Should he be playing elsewhere? national narratives that we all had to suffer through before Jackson ultimately received his extension.
