When Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke spoke to reporters at the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine, he revealed the team is in talks with three of its impending free agents — Josh Allen, Calvin Ridley, and Ezra Cleveland — to bring them back.
Later, in an interview with NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe, he said the Jaguars have started talks with quarterback Trevor Lawrence too.
So how much would it cost to sign all four of those players to new contracts? Spoiler alert: a lot.
With the salary cap soaring, several Jaguars players are well-positioned to secure pricy contracts if the team hopes to keep them for the foreseeable future. Add defensive backs Tyson Campbell and Andre Cisco to the mix (Baalke mentioned them in an interview as players who will “eventually need contracts”) and the Jaguars could be handing out several big deals to some of their key players.
Here’s a guess at how much it’d cost for the Jaguars to keep those six players if they signed new contracts this offseason:
Trevor Lawrence: Five-year, $295 million
Let me take a second to explain why this $59 million per year contract, which would be an NFL record, may actually be underselling what Lawrence could get from the Jaguars.
Last offseason, four quarterbacks (Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow) got record-breaking deals one after another, pushing the number for the highest paid player in the NFL from $51 million per year to $52 million to $52.5 million to $55 million, respectively.
There’s not much reason to think the next quarterback to get a premium contract, which will seemingly be Lawrence or Tua Tagovailoa, won’t continue that progression.
So why a jump all the way to an average of $59 million per season? Mostly, because of the unprecedented $30 million jump in salary cap space for the 2024 season.
When Burrow signed his deal prior to the 2023 season, the $55 million average was about 24.5 percent of the $224.8 salary cap. That same percentage of the $255.4 million cap would come out to about $62.5 million per season.
Lawrence, who is already in talks with the Jaguars about his next deal, could realistically become the first NFL player with a contract averaging at least $60 million per season. We’re pegging his deal to come up just a little bit short of that benchmark while still setting a new standard for quarterback pay.
Josh Allen: Five-year, $137.5 million
It’s a massive total and would easily be the largest contract ever handed out by the Jaguars (so long as it happens before Trevor Lawrence gets paid). Yet, the $27.5 million average for Allen would still be well behind the $34 million per year deal that Nick Bosa signed (five-year, $170 million) with the San Francisco 49ers in September 2023.
While Allen has been a leader for the Jaguars defense and had a breakout season last year with 17.5 sacks, Bosa is a four-time Pro Bowler who got his contract immediately after earning 2022 AP Defensive Player of the Year honors.
It makes more sense to look to the markets for Montez Sweat, Rashan Gary, and Joey Bosa, each of whom play on a contract that pays at least $24 million per year. There’s not much reason for Allen to take a deal that averages anything less than $26 million or so. But it’d also be hard for him to get that number up above $28 million, where he’d put himself in T.J. Watt territory.
The leverage is firmly in Allen’s court and if the Jaguars hope to lock down the pass rusher, it’ll take one of the largest deals ever for an NFL defensive player.
Calvin Ridley: Two-year, $44 million
Ridley will turn 30 late next season and has a recent history that’s complicated, to say the least. Even if he hadn’t served a one-year suspension in 2022 for gambling on sports, Ridley dealt with a foot injury that required a 2021 surgery and he stepped away from the sport later that year. In his 2023 return, Ridley racked up 1,016 yards and eight touchdowns with the Jaguars, but also struggled with consistency and drops.
All that to say, a long-term deal probably isn’t coming for the receiver.
But the Jaguars aren’t going to get him back on a cheap, “prove-it” deal either. With Tee Higgins already franchised and both Mike Evans and Michael Pittman Jr. seemingly set to return to their respective teams, Ridley has a chance at being the best receiver to hit the free agency market. Why would he take a discount deal?
A $22 million per year contract is a big bump from the $18 million average that Christian Kirk got from Jacksonville in 2022. But it’s also not close to the $30 million per year Tyreek Hill is getting. It’d instead put Ridley closer to Terry McLaurin, a more realistic parallel for the receiver’s market.
Ezra Cleveland: Three-year, $30 million
If those numbers look a little rich for your blood, I don’t blame you.
While Cleveland is still just 25 and has 54 career starts under his belt, it’s hard to argue that he’s ever been that reliable. The Vikings were fine sending him away for a late-round draft pick and the Jaguars didn’t get stellar play in return.
Maybe he’d secure the left guard job in Jacksonville and provide quality play for the next few years. But a $10 million per year bet on that is stepping out on a ledge a bit.
Yet that’s probably the price tag for an experienced starter in his mid-20s. Starting offensive linemen don’t grow on trees and mid-level players like Nate Davis and Ben Powers have secured deals similar to the contract I’ve projected for Cleveland.
If it looks like too much, maybe it is for the Jaguars. Some other team would probably be willing to pay it, though.
Tyson Campbell: Three-year, $45 million
Campbell had a shaky rookie season, an excellent year two, and an injury-plagued year three. What the Jaguars should expect out of him in year four and beyond is a tough question to answer. Ideally for Jacksonville, he returns to the 2022 form that earned him a spot in the top five of PFF’s rankings. But should he be paid like a top five cornerback?
Last year, Trevon Diggs signed a five-year, $97 million deal with the Cowboys and Jalen Ramsey got a three-year, $55 million restructured contract from the Dolphins.
It will be hard to for Campbell to get a deal in that stratosphere unless he puts together another great year in 2024 and waits until the 2025 offseason to sign a new contract. For now, we’ll project a $15 million average that’d put him just outside the top 10 highest paid players at the position.
Andre Cisco: Four-year, $48 million
If Campbell is a case study in inconsistency from year to year, Cisco is the personification of inconsistency on a weekly basis.
While his PFF grade has hardly moved annually — 67.9 in 2021, 67.7 in 2022, and 68.9 in 2023 — there have been absolutely great moments from Cisco sprinkled in with games where’s he looks lost.
But if the goal is to pay players for what they’re going to be instead of what they’ve been, the Jaguars have plenty of reason to be optimistic about the future of Cisco. He’s a rangy center-fielder capable of delivering big hits and making athletic plays on the football.
The top-paid safeties in the NFL (Derwin James, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Jamal Adams, Jessie Bates, and Harrison Smith) all make over $16 million per year. A $12 million average would put Cisco down in the next tier.
