Lamar Jackson is not at Ravens OTAs. The workouts are voluntary. They are also where you find out what kind of leader your franchise quarterback wants to be in a new era.
The Baltimore Ravens opened voluntary organized team activities Tuesday afternoon, and Jackson was not on the practice field. Cornerbacks Chidobe Awuzie and Marlon Humphrey were also absent, along with safety Kyle Hamilton. The Ravens have a new head coach in Jesse Minter, a new defensive coordinator, and several new offensive wrinkles. The first open practice of the new era happened without four of the team’s most important players.
This is technically not a big deal. OTAs are voluntary by every measure of the word. Jackson did attend Minter’s first voluntary minicamp earlier this offseason, so it is not as if he has been completely absent. Minter himself said after Tuesday’s practice that Jackson has been “one of the leaders of the offseason program” and that he expects him back soon.
The financial angle is interesting. Jackson signed a five-year, $260 million extension before the 2023 season. The contract includes workout bonuses worth up to $750,000 if he participates in a certain number of voluntary offseason practices. He gave up that $750,000 each of the last two years by skipping enough of those workouts to fall short of the threshold. The pattern is consistent. He shows up when he wants to show up, and he is willing to leave money on the table to keep his offseason schedule his own.
The bigger story is the new era. The Ravens fired John Harbaugh after another disappointing playoff exit and hired Minter, who had been the defensive coordinator at Michigan. Minter has never been an NFL head coach. He inherited a Hall of Fame quarterback, a championship-caliber defense, and a fanbase that has been waiting nearly two decades for another Super Bowl trip.
Jackson missing the first open practice is the kind of small thing that becomes a big thing if the Ravens start the season slow. National media will dredge up the story every time the offense looks out of sync. Local columnists will write think pieces about whether Jackson is fully bought in. Teammates will be asked the same question over and over.
The Awuzie, Humphrey, and Hamilton absences make the optics a little better. Jackson is not the only star missing. The Ravens’ best three defensive backs are also not at the practice. If everyone is taking the “voluntary” part of voluntary workouts seriously, then nobody is wrong, exactly.
But every quarterback is held to a different standard. Patrick Mahomes does not skip Chiefs OTAs. Joe Burrow does not skip Bengals OTAs. The franchise quarterback is supposed to be the player who sets the tone for the rest of the locker room about how seriously the offseason is taken. Jackson has built his career on doing things his own way, and the Ravens have allowed it because he keeps winning MVP awards.
The real question is what this means for the offense. The Ravens are running a new scheme under Minter and his staff. Reps in OTAs are how new schemes get installed. Jackson missing those reps means he is going to have less time to learn the playbook before training camp. That is fine if he picks it up quickly. It is not fine if the offense looks lost in September.
The Ravens were active in free agency and traded for veteran defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence in a deal with the Giants. The team is clearly in win-now mode. They added the players they thought they needed. They hired the coach they thought would maximize their roster. They cannot afford to waste a year because the offense was not on the same page in September.
Jackson will be back. Probably soon. Minter said as much, and there is no indication of any actual rift between Jackson and the new coaching staff. But every day he is not on the field is a day that becomes a talking point. The Ravens have built this team to compete for a championship. Their franchise quarterback can show up for the easy parts of the offseason or not. The price of skipping comes due in the fall.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
