Lamar Jackson's latest injury raises obvious questions about his future in Baltimore

Published November 5, 2026 06:42 AM With quarterback Lamar Jackson’s ninth NFL season possibly over after three full games and two first-half exits, obvious questions have emerged regarding his future in Baltimore.The facts fuel the speculation. He’s under contract for one more season, and the Ravens can’t use the franchise tag or the transition tag to limit his ability to become an unrestricted free agent in March 2028, which is only 16 months away.If Jackson wants a fresh start at age 31, he’ll be able to have one.The Ravens made it clear in January that they wanted to extend his contract by the start of the new league year in March 2026. It didn’t happen, for reasons that never became clear because neither Jackson nor the Ravens (at Jackson’s behest) share information about the negotiations.Before the season began, it seemed that a new contract wa just a matter of time. The Ravens surely would like to do it before the start of the new league year in March, when Jackson’s cap number spikes to $84.34 million. Although the team has the right to do another restructuring that would reduce the 2027 cap number, that would make the dead-cap reckoning even larger as of 2028. A trade would avoid the final $52 million in cash and cap charges, but the cap realities would make a post-June 1 move the far better option. And there have been whispers of at least one team doing advance homework on a potential pursuit of Jackson in 2027.The overriding question is whether Jackson’s lingering availability issue changes things for the Ravens. For now, there’s no reason to think it has. When the dust settles on the season, the Ravens will have to revisit that question.But that will lead to another question. What would they do at quarterback without Lamar Jackson? That simple reality prompted them to give him a market-level deal in 2023, and to want to do it again. As long as that desire to avoid a future without Lamar Jackson remains, there’s no reason to think he won’t be back in Baltimore in 2027.