Mike Florio Projects Jackson’s Next Contract

Owner Steve Bisciotti said on Wednesday he’d like to sign Jackson to a contract extension before free agency begins in March because Jackson’s cap hit will jump from $43.5 million to $74.5 million.

“I think that he’s amenable to doing something that mirrors the last deal he did, although the annual number will be a little higher, but I’m hoping that it’s [going to be] plug a new number into the same contract he signed last year and move on,” Bisciotti said. “And the urgency of that matters to me because we’ve got free agents, and I don’t want to go into free agency with that hanging over our head.”

Jackson signed a five-year, reported $260 million contract ($52 million per year) before the 2023 season, which put him under contract through 2027.

Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio projected what a new deal for Jackson could look like.

“Since then, the market has moved (as to new money) to $60 million per year (if we ignore the new-money analysis regarding Josh Allen’s latest deal),” Florio wrote. “And so the goal presumably will be to get Jackson beyond Dak Prescott’s current high-water mark. Jackson has two years and $104 million left on his current contract. To get to a new-money average of, say, $61 million, the Ravens would have to offer a three-year extension at $183 million.

“But there are no actual ‘extensions’ in the NFL. The old contract gets ripped up, and a new one takes its place. With the two remaining years at $104 million, the Ravens could offer five years, $287 million. That would boost the new-money average to $61 million, even if the true average from signing would be $57.4 million.”

Florio said getting the right structure is key.

“Last time, Jackson got a signing bonus of $72.5 million,” Florio wrote. “If he receives $80 million up front on a new deal, his cap number (coupled with a minimum salary of $1.3 million) would be $17.3 million plus the $22.5 million in 2026 allocation from his prior contract. That’s $39.8 million — creating cap space of $34.7 million in advance of 2026 free agency. They’d also have to figure out how much of the new contract would be guaranteed. In 2023, he wanted all five years to be fully guaranteed. He ultimately agreed to a deal with three years of full guarantees.”