The Ravens and quarterback Lamar Jackson had done a very effective job keeping all the details of Baltimore’s offers to their franchise quarterback extremely quiet. That ended Sunday, with ESPN’s Chris Mortensen revealing many details about the contract. The report has the union’s fingerprints all over it, in part because Mortensen specifically identified “union sources” in one of his tweets. In other words, someone from the union was speaking. According to a source familiar with Jackson’s mindset regarding negotiations, he would be “pissed off” that someone with the NFL Players Association said something. Other evidence that the report came from the union includes omissions from the details of the agreement. No cash flow was reported in year one or year two. If the Ravens were leaking the information, this probably would have been included. Because it is probably very significant in size. And because it balances insistence on a fully guaranteed deal. Also, the notion that the drop was worth as much as $290 million, as Mortensen reports, was simply wrong — as evidenced by ESPN pushing a new story that drops the $290 million number and replaces it with $250 million .
