INDIANAPOLIS — When the Baltimore Ravens' braintrust held a season-ending news conference on Jan. 19, the tone was hopeful but pointed: There was significant ground to cover in contract negotiations with quarterback Lamar Jackson and a shrinking window of time to work with.
Six weeks later, the talks remain stuck in a quagmire of ambiguity, while the environment among the Ravens keeps getting more tense.
The latest turn came this week, when general manager Eric DeCosta somewhat stunningly shaded his wide receivers while meeting with the media at the NFL scouting combine, framing Baltimore’s struggles in evaluating the position with a line that was bound to catch the attention of his locker room:
“I would say a lot of people would say the same thing; it’s a challenging position to evaluate in different ways.