Lamar Jackson reportedly offered one final reason as to why he didn’t sign a contract with the Baltimore Ravens this past week.

Despite having all of the offseason and preseason to work out a new deal, the Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson were unable to come to an agreement on how they wanted to move forward as a partnership, even with the pressure of a hard deadline coming from Jackson.

Jackson had stated that he wanted his contract negotiations to be finished before the season kicked off this past Sunday against the New York Jets, presumably so that he could have all of his focus on what was happening on the field rather than his finances.  

However, the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement, meaning that, with the Ravens having picked up his 5th-year option last year, Jackson is set to make around $23m this year, but his long-term future is far from secure. The Ravens do have a number of options to hold onto him in the meantime such as the franchsie tag that will have to be activated next summer, but beyond that is a mystery.

But it isn’t as if the Ravens have been trying to short-change Jackson through all of this.

Lamar Jackson wants giant bucks

According to a report from ESPN’s Chris Mortenson, the Ravens had offered Jackson a pretty substantial offer on the day of the game, but it wasn’t deemed good enough for Jackson as he turned down their last-ditch attempt to secure him for the long-term:

With his deadline in the rear-view mirror, that’s where he wants to keep discussions about his contract as well, as speaking to reporters during media availability at practice this week, he noted that he didn’t want to talk about the ins and outs of his contract situation anymore:

Video: Lamar Jackson lays down the law to reporters:

Meaning that ESPN’s Dianna Russini was the last one to get any serious talk out of him over the matter, and she hinted at exactly what the reason was that Jackson turned the deal down.

What did Lamar Jackson say?

Speaking on ESPN’s Get Up, Russini revealed that she spoke to Jackson on Sunday after the Ravens’ win over the Jets, and hinted that it may have been the lack of guaranteed money that Jackson was set to receive was the main issue why he turned down their offer.

Video: Diana Russini talks about Lamar Jackson’s contract:

Fully guaranteed contracts are extremely rare in the NFL, which is why the Cleveland Browns contract to Deshaun Watson of 5 years, $230m fully guaranteed is seen as such an outlier in the league.

So if the only thing Jackson is worried about is the guarantee aspect of the contract, then he might need to lower his expectations when negotiations start up at the end of the season if he wants to stay with the Ravens for a long time to come.