Whitlock: The matriarchal mindset powers Lamar Jackson’s contract standoff with Ravens

Lamar Jackson is playing with the Baltimore Ravens. He’s taking the chance of losing the good thing he has in Baltimore. He neglected the Ravens during their playoff game against the Cincinnati Bengals. The 2019 MVP isn’t taking care of something good, the organization that poured into him the past five seasons.

Lamar Jackson should read his passive-aggressive Instagram post to himself. Then he should read it to his former teammate and volunteer media fluffer Robert Griffin III.

Here’s what Jackson posted:

“When you have something good, you don’t play with it. You don’t take chances losing it. You don’t neglect it. When you have something good, you pour into it. You appreciate it. Because when you take care of something good, that good thing takes care of you too.”

I suspect Jackson’s mother wrote the post. It sounds like dialogue ripped from a Tyler Perry movie or the 1995 classic “Waiting to Exhale.” The post ignores the cold, hard facts of professional football and life. It’s a point of view drenched in romantic fantasy.

Romance and finance partner at whorehouses and sugar-daddy websites. Everywhere else, they’re inevitable enemies.

That’s where we are in the Jackson-Ravens romance novel, the inevitable conclusion. The Baltimore Ravens poured everything into Lamar Jackson. They built their entire organization around a spectacular run-first quarterback. Everything the franchise does centers around making Jackson successful.

This is unusual in the NFL, where the Green Bay Packers drafted a quarterback with Aaron Rodgers still playing at an MVP level and Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots refused to provide Tom Brady adequate offensive personnel.

The Ravens poured into Lamar Jackson, acquiring backup quarterbacks who could run Jackson’s system, hiring and empowering an offensive coordinator adept at exploiting running QBs. The Ravens went all in on Lamar.

Now there’s a dispute about how much money the organization should guarantee the one-dimensional quarterback who has yet to experience real playoff success.

The financial dispute is complicated by the mistake made by the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland guaranteed Deshaun Watson $230 million. Watson did not deserve the money. He sat the entire 2021 season amid sexual assault allegations. To make matters worse, the Arizona Cardinals guaranteed Kyler Murray $189 million. Murray did not deserve it.

Happiness is based on expectations. The mistakes in Cleveland and Arizona understandably elevated Lamar’s expectations. But Baltimore cannot make sound business decisions based on Jackson’s expectations. And the franchise should not make bad business decisions based on the false racial narratives promoted by ESPN and Robert Griffin.

Griffin has spent the week demonizing anyone questioning Jackson’s decision to skip attending Baltimore’s playoff game against Cincinnati. Griffin is claiming that Jackson was too sick to travel and that people are “weaponizing” rumors to sabotage Jackson. Others at ESPN are complaining that Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert won’t have to fight to get large new contracts.

Jackson picked a contract fight the moment he and his mother decided not to retain an agent in 2018. Jackson’s mother is not qualified to negotiate the deal Jackson is trying to get. No one in corporate media is comfortable addressing the elephant in the room because of the satanic worship of women, particularly black women. Everyone is afraid of being accused of misogyny or racism.

RG3 definitely isn’t going to address the issue. He’s married to a white woman and lives in fear of a black Twitter storm calling him a sellout.

I like Lamar Jackson. But what’s happening to him right now has been rather predictable since draft night 2018 when everyone treated him as a victim of racism. He was the last pick of the first round. NFL experts pretended Jackson was the new Emmett Till. We wrapped him in the cocoon of victimhood. Five years later, we’re doing the same thing.

Once you’re granted victimhood, it’s nearly impossible to escape the brand.

Well, here’s the truth. Five NFL quarterbacks received new deals last off-season guaranteeing them at least $130 million: Matt Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, and Deshaun Watson. Their teams finished 5-12, 8-9, 5-12, 4-13, and 7-10. None of the teams made the playoffs or finished above .500.

It’s no mystery why the Ravens are reluctant to give Jackson a huge guaranteed contract. He’s not on the same level as Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. He’s not on the same level as Joe Burrow.

Lamar Jackson is unique. He should value the fact that the Ravens built their entire organization around his unique skill set. He should be pouring himself into the Baltimore Ravens.

No one is going to tell him that truth in modern American culture. He’s being led by a matriarchal and victim mindset that argues that men should pour everything into women because we owe them.