Lamar Jackson is a two-time MVP, he’s been named to the Pro Bowl four times and he has an AFC championship game appearance. Yet, he still continues to be so unserious after the latest news regarding his jersey number eight.
Jackson is suing NASCAR legend, Dale Earnhardt Jr., over the number eight. Jackson and his team filed a suit earlier this week with his team claiming that Junior’s trademark number eight is too close to Jackson’s brand, ERA 8.
For some background on Dale Jr., he drove the number eight Budweiser from 2000-2007 and made that number famous during his formative years as a driver. Junior still uses that same number with the same font to this day, putting it on one of his cars in the NASCAR xfinity series.
While Jackson is a big name in football, Dale Jr’s influence in NASCAR is greater than Patrick Mahomes’ influence in the NFL. Junior is considered the ambassador of the sport and his voice carries a lot of weight for how NASCAR opporates.
Junior is trying register the number eight as a trademark, yet Jackson and his team released statement regarding the issue with this:
Earnhardt Jr.’s registration could falsely imply a connection between the two athletes and infringe on his established rights.
From a legal standpoint this makes sense, but from a human standpoint this makes no sense. In NASCAR, Junior is the number eight and will forever be associated with that number in the sport.
Jackson isn’t even the greatest eight to play football, that honor most likely goes to Troy Aikman. Jackson has yet to win a Super Bowl and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a hall of famer in NASCAR.
So this lawsuit makes it that much more confusing: nobody would ever confuse Jackson with Earnhardt and Jackson has much bigger things to worry about than his brand.
Jackson has yet to reach the Super Bowl and time is running out. Derrick Henry isn’t going to have great years like he did last year all the time, so the Baltimore Ravens are in win-now mode and that should be the priority.
However, their franchise quarterback is more worried about his brand than he is about his game. If I was a Ravens fan, this would be concerning.
Lawsuits like this take years to solve, so that means that this legal battle could carry over into the NFL regular season. That could be a distraction for Jackson, who is known for struggling in the playoffs.
It seems like Jackson is trying to squeeze every dollar he can out of his number and his name and honestly who can blame him.
However, it seems silly to go after someone with such a powerful voice and someone who’s accomplished more in his sport than Jackson has in his sport.
This lawsuit unfortunately makes Jackson look unserious as he’s more focused about making money than making it to the Super Bowl.
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