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Despite being only a 12 months faraway from being one of many 4 groups to throw their hat into the Deshaun Watson sweepstakes, Atlanta Falcons proprietor Arthur Blank stated on the NFL homeowners conferences Tuesday that his franchise wouldn’t pursue buying and selling for Lamar Jackson, the 26-year-old, former unanimous NFL MVP quarterback. Blank added that the Jackson state of affairs is “very totally different” than Watson’s final 12 months.
“Different participant, totally different time,” Blank stated Tuesday, by way of The Athletic. “You have a winner (in Jackson), a MVP within the league. There’s no query he is one of many prime quarterbacks within the league.
“Looking at it objectively, I’d say there’s some concern over how lengthy can he play his model of recreation. Hopefully a very long time … however he is missed 5, six video games every of the final two years. Each recreation counts quite a bit in our enterprise”
Watson missed your entire 2021 season and was suspended for the primary 11 video games of the 2022 marketing campaign on account of his then-pending litigation involving allegations of sexual misconduct. Watson, not like Jackson, has suffered a number of torn ACLs — one in 2014 when he was at Clemson and one in 2017 when he was a rookie with the Houston Texans. His availability (or lack thereof) did not seem to make a lot of a distinction for Atlanta final offseason. Now, Watson’s five-year, fully-guaranteed $230 million contract he signed upon being acquired by the Cleveland Browns seems to be extra of a problem this time round since Jackson has been unable to come back to phrases with the Ravens’ gives of lower than a fully-guaranteed deal.
Blank additionally acknowledged that quarterback Desmond Ridder, the workforce’s third-round decide within the 2022 NFL Draft, has “continued to indicate us the whole lot we have to and past that to the purpose” of feeling assured about Ridder as their starter getting into the upcoming season. Atlanta additionally signed former Washington Commanders quarterback Taylor Heinicke to a two-year, $14 million contract this offseason to be Ridder’s backup. However, neither the 30-year-old Heinicke nor the 23-year-old Ridder have something remotely near a NFL MVP to their identify like Jackson earned in 2019.
