JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Don’t be blinded by the numbers.
Overpay? Too early? Unproven?
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I think the Jaguars took care of business and got a solid deal done.
How many times have you heard the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover?” Probably dozens. But somehow people are judging Trevor Lawrence’s new contract by only looking at the cover. That in this case is the $275 million deal with an average of $55 million per season.
The numbers say Trevor Lawrence is now in a tie with Joe Burrow as the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL. But don’t be blinded by the numbers.
If I sat two bowls next to each other, one bigger than the other, and put a huge scoop of ice cream in each of them and said you could fill the rest of the bowl with as many toppings as you’d like. Naturally, the bigger bowl would have an advantage. Even though the scoops are the same size, they would take of different amounts of the available space in the bowl.
That is context!
The context in this case is the size of the NFL’s salary cap. When Burrow signed his contract in 2023, the salary cap was $224.8 million. That meant that $55 million per year would account for about 24.4% of the salary cap.
On the other hand, when Lawrence agreed to his deal, the salary cap had grown to $255.4 million. That means that his deal is only worth about 21.5% of the cap.
Same amount, but not the same.
By that logic, Lawrence’s deal is also more cost-efficient than the deals signed by Lamar Jackson and Justin last year.
Signing the deal now also allowed the Jaguars to get ahead of some big QB deals that could push the market up. Jordan Love, Tua Tagovailoa and Dak Prescott could all get market-shifting type deals.
That leaves just the “unproven” argument. And well, that takes some context as well.
Lawrence’s rookie year was well ‘Meyer-ed’ with issues, many that were outside of his control. In 2022, the light came on in the second half of the season and it shined bright. That is why the expectations for the Jaguars were so high last year.
And Lawrence led the Jags to an 8-3 record. Injuries and some other issues derailed the offense down the stretch. But let’s not act like Lawrence is the first or the last player to play through an injury and not play well. He is the guy. You can take my word for it or go back and look at the games again.
Lawrence has by no means been perfect but don’t just look at the stat sheet, look at the context.