After a quiet few days following roster cutdowns, Wednesday saw some action from the podium in the form of several press conferences. The most eventful one came in the form of a rare appearance from Eric DeCosta, who had plenty of interesting things to say to the local beat. Let’s break them all down:
Optimism About Lamar’s Contract
It’s an every-few-years occurrence at this point; Lamar Jackson’s contract is nearing it’s end, and he and the Ravens do a dance of negotiations both behind closed doors, and within the media. Lamar’s been extremely savvy in how he’s played this in the past, most notably ahead of the 2023 season, when he got everything he wanted in a deal, save for the fully guaranteed condition he had been pushing for.
And now, just a few years later, we’re back in (almost) the same spot. The Ravens’ quarterback carries a 2026 cap hit of $34.39 million, that balloons up to an untenable $84.34 million figure in 2027. Obviously, the team would like to get a deal done ahead of that cap number becoming official, and we’ve seen multiple cycles of conversation over the last year or so that indicate optimism towards getting a deal done - including ahead of last season.
So, here we are again, entering the 2026 season, needing to get a deal between both sides done. So, take DeCosta’s optimism however you’d like, but it’s worth noting that he did express it:
"I would say I'm optimistic," DeCosta said. "I feel good about it. I really don't like to get into details. I'm not going to talk about it specifically. Lamar and I have a pact, as you all know, I’ve said it probably 50 times – we’re not going to talk about business publicly. We try to compensate our players, our best players, as well as we can. You can look at that from an average standpoint, you can look at that from a guaranteed-money standpoint, a term standpoint, incentives — whatever that is, we try to be fair plus with our players, and I think over time we have proven that for the most part. It is important to us.”
The last time we saw this happen, Lamar set a self-imposed deadline that he wanted to get a deal done ahead of the 2022 season. We’ve heard no such absolutes this time around, but the rigors of regular season football don’t lend themselves well to also negotiating a high profile, big money contract on the side (especially when you, the player, are the one negotiating for yourself). It’s tough to say if we’ll see a deal get done in the less than two weeks we have before Week 1 kickoff, but at the very least, Baltimore’s GM is confident it will get done sometime.
