Lamar Jackson is the permanent starting quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens.
Head coach John Harbaugh announced the news Wednesday. The Louisville Heisman winner had started multiple games when Joe Flacco went down hurt. Now, Flacco will back him up going forward.
Ravens HC John Harbaugh announces Lamar Jackson will start at QB on Sunday with Flacco as backup pic.twitter.com/T0lZToVB9b
— Bleacher Report NFL (@BR_NFL) December 12, 2018
This is a bit surprising to me. Jackson hasn’t played poorly by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s still very raw when it comes to a whole variety of things dealing with his game.
I figured they’d at least roll with Flacco through the end of the year once he got healthy again. Clearly, that was an incorrect assumption. (RELATED: Here Are The Best Moments Of Week 14 Of The NFL Season)
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It’s also pretty crazy to compare the salaries of the two quarterbacks. Jackson is making less than $30,000 per game paycheck and Flacco is making more than $700,000 to not play. That’s a nice chunk of change to get paid in order to not throw footballs.
Lamar Jackson named Ravens starter today, which means they will be starting a guy who makes 25 times less than the backup.
Jackson’s weekly in-season paycheck: $28,235
Now backup Joe Flacco’s in-season paycheck: $705,882— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 12, 2018
Now, we’re going to get a lot more tape of Jackson to finish out the year. He’s getting an opportunity that most young QBs never do. We’ll have to wait and see what he does with it.