The Baltimore Ravens placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on Lamar Jackson earlier this week. The disgruntled quarterback is expected to draw interest from a lot of teams and that came to fruition nearly immediately.
However, just as quickly as the speculation started, certain teams made it known that they aren’t interested in the former MVP. One of those teams was the Atlanta Falcons.
The Falcons seem satisfied to head into next season with 2022 third-round pick Desmond Ridder under center despite Jackson and other quarterbacks being available this offseason.
NFL insider Brian Baldinger and 92.9 The Game’s Carl Dukes of the Audacy Original Podcast “In The Huddle” discussed the Falcons’ reported lack of interest in Jackson and why Atlanta is crazy to not be interested in the former MVP.
“Wherever it came from in Atlanta, they said they’re not interested. I think they’re crazy not to be interested, to be honest with you,” Baldinger said (2:35 in player above). “I know people were ‘Well, we had Julio, Matt Ryan and we were in salary cap hell. We don’t want to go back to salary cap hell, we want to build this team.’ Well, alright, if you think Desmond Ridder and what he showed in the last few games is the answer going forward, OK, if you believe that, that’s fine. But he’s not Lamar Jackson.”
Jackson has a record of 45-16 in the regular season in his career but has won just one playoff game in four tries. Nevertheless, he’s the best available quarterback this offseason and the NFL is a quarterback-driven league.
Dukes has been banging the Jackson drum for months now on his radio show and that’s not going to stop anytime soon.
“The Falcons after hearing this chatter of ‘Holy crap, we got to get in on this,’ immediately reached out and started putting information out there that ‘We’re not interested! We don’t want to talk to him! We’re not interested!’ And immediately everybody else jumped on board,” he said. “I know these are credible sources, some of these guys are my friends, so I respect that, but I also understand where it came from.”
Atlanta and other NFL teams may just be trying to not show their cards as of yet.
“This is a game of poker, folks, and everybody’s playing right now and they’re going ‘Not interested! Don’t want to talk to him!’ And they’re bull----ing, flat out,” Dukes continued. “More times than not, all the teams that we’re talking about have some kind of interest.”
While Ridder showed some promise in the final few games of the season, he’s not on the same level as Jackson.
“You can’t even look yourself in the face if you’re a Falcons fan and say ‘Well, Desmond Ridder. We got Ridder.’ Ridder? He’s not better than Lamar,” Dukes exclaimed. “I can’t even take you seriously.”
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