DeCosta said the Ravens have "four, five or six different plans based on what happens over the next 10 days." Teams can officially begin speaking to free agents on March 13.
The first domino will fall by Tuesday's deadline to apply the franchise tag. DeCosta said the Ravens haven’t decided yet on which they would use – exclusive or non-exclusive – but if they have not reached a long-term agreement by then, the Ravens will apply one. That will, at least, give the Ravens a working knowledge of how much salary-cap space they would have if Jackson plays under the tag.
However, negotiations toward a long-term deal can continue even after the franchise tag is applied. That deadline for signing a tagged player to an extension isn't until mid-July.
So while DeCosta said Wednesday that he and Jackson "both understand the urgency of the situation," it's less of an impending hard deadline so much as a soft deadline so DeCosta and the Ravens can operate the rest of their offseason business. Free agency opens on March 15, less than two weeks, and the Ravens don't know how much money they're bringing to the table.
"I don't know how you really conduct business if you are Baltimore right now until you get an answer kind of one way or the other whether or not you're going to be able to come close on a deal," NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said last week.
Without knowing what Jackson will cost, the Ravens don't know how many of their own pending free agents, such as cornerback Marcus Peters, they can bring back. They don't know how many veterans they may need to release to create salary-cap space. They don't know how much money they have to spend to augment other areas of weakness, such as the wide receiver corps.
Planning for a team with Jackson on a long-term contract would give the Ravens the most flexibility in 2023 and ability to plan for years beyond. Having Jackson on the non-exclusive tender (about $32.4 million) would mean some trimming in accordance with how many additions they want to make. Carrying him on the exclusive tender (about $45 million) would mean deep cuts and restructures this offseason just to get under the cap.
"There's no bigger question, no bigger decision, no bigger challenge for this organization moving forward than this contract," DeCosta said. "Most of my effort is focused on this. The rest of it is focused on the draft and free agency. But it's hard to really have a clear vision of what the future is going to look like until we can get this contract done."
Whether the two sides have come any closer to a deal than they were when talks were tabled at the start of the 2022 season is unclear. They're still in communication and DeCosta said "we've had good meetings recently." In the end, they'll likely have to meet somewhere in the middle to get over the finish line, and it remains to be seen whether that will happen.
In the Lamar Jackson 'Haze,' Ravens' Offseason Business Is Slowed - BaltimoreRavens.com
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