3 reasons Baltimore Ravens were able to finalize deal with Lamar Jackson

The Baltimore Ravens have reportedly finalized a deal to keep Lamar Jackson with the team for the next five seasons. There was a time a month, a week, or even a day ago when many did not think that this was going to happen. It has to have fans wondering, what changed?

3. The Jalen Hurts contact helped Baltimore Ravens

Before the Jalen Hurts contract the Ravens and Lamar Jackson were in the middle of nowhere with few deals to go off of. Lamar Jackson wanted the Deshaun Watson contract, and the Ravens were not interested in giving that deal away. Then, Jalen Hurts signed his deal.

The reality is that Hurts got a little bit more on average value, but he got a bit less guaranteed. Hurts got about $110 guaranteed at signing, with $179M Guaranteed. That is not quite the $230M guaranteed that Watson got.

What the deal did was showed Jackson that he is not going to get that deal. He can compare himself to Hurts, and the Ravens can come in and take the Hurts deal and add a little bit more.

There were reports that the Hurts and Jackson deals already were not far apart. Now, the Ravens know what the Hurts deal is, so they only needed to add a little here, and there. This is much different than the Ravens having to go all the way up the Deshaun Watson deal.

It turned into a happy medium for both teams. The Ravens gave Lamar Jackson the respect of beating Hurts contract and being the next in line in the market of deals. On the flip side, the team also did not go all the way into the Watson deal, which means they did not break on their end either. With the help of Jalen Hurts both sides came together and gave a little, but not enough where either looked bad. It was a nice compromise.