There’s a lot more to this than football.
Americans absolutely love their anti-heroes and “shoot from the hip,” edgy assholes, right up until the point where the rugged bootstrapper is an African American athlete who is petulant or dismissive of wealth, power, and authority. That person stepping out of line is a big problem. They are usually selfish and out of touch. Furthermore, they are losers and anathema to successful franchises.
That narrative plays out time and again. The media frames it, and we, as fans, get sucked into the process of castigating the individual who has fallen out of line.
Lamar Jackson is one of the top 10 most dynamic players in the NFL when he’s healthy. He has won with a team that has done very little to build a roster with genuine talent around him or at least struggled mightily in that process.
Jackson’s audacity to represent himself and demanding guaranteed money to match the deal DeShaun Watson got from Cleveland have made him a topic of ridicule all off-season. He attempted to be a loyal soldier by delaying his pursuit of a raise even while the Ravens knew they were exploiting their young star’s value. They saw this coming.
Photo courtesy of Arrowhead Addict
With the recent off-season QB carousels, we have watched all kinds of retreads and riskier players get massive deals, just not to the tune of what Jackson believes he deserves. With the risk of his recent injury-riddled seasons, it is not entirely unreasonable that prospective employers might be reticent.
Still, teams want to win, and acquiring risky players is not unprecedented. The Bucs with Tom Brady and the Rams with Matthew Stafford are similar players who dramatically shifted their new employers’ fortunes. It’s about the guaranteed money. The owners do not want to break from the leverage that provides them over their stars. Even more than that, they don’t want to be shown up by some African American QB.
This pattern of animosity goes back to The Reconstruction period of the United States and is heavily laden with racist implications that we are all trying to overcome.
