John Harbaugh Guarantees They’re Picking Up Lamar Jackson’s Fifth-Year Option

On Tuesday, Ravens HC John Harbaugh told Rich Eisen that he “guarantees” that they will pick up their fifth-year option on QB Lamar Jackson. 

Some had wondered if the Ravens might be willing to allow Jackson to play out his contract and then draft another quarterback at some point, which would allow them to continue to operate with a cheap quarterback contract on the books and build out the rest of the team. 

However, Harbaugh made it clear that this isn’t a consideration for them and they expect to have Jackson in place as their starter moving forward. 

The Ravens are expected to open extension talks with Jackson at some point in the next year or so and it will be interesting to see what kind of numbers are being discussed. 

The fifth-year option will cost the Ravens $23 million million fully guaranteed for the 2022 season, but won’t prevent them from working on an extension. 

Jackson, 24, is a former first-round pick of the Ravens back in 2018. He’s in the third year of his four-year, $9,471,652 contract that included a $5,968,472 signing bonus.

In 2020, Jackson appeared in 15 games for the Ravens and completed 64.4 percent of his passes for 2,757 yards, 26 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He also rushed for 1,005 yards and seven touchdowns.