Quarterback production is very much a subjective measure, as a sport centered around eleven positions all piecing together one part of the same play lends itself to a lot of open interpretation. Did the quarterback sail a throw or did the receiver run the wrong route? Did the offensive lineman blow that block or did the quarterback fail to slide the protection to that side? No one outside that team’s film room will ever truly know. Expert playcallers like Kyle Shannahan can even make you question whether their quarterback is an NFL player outside his safe space for offensive genius. A lot of football is unknowable.
Except for Lamar Jackson, who as Shaq once said about Paul Pierce, is the motherfuckin’ truth. Yesterday should have sent shivers down the spine of the rest of the NFL, showing what he is now capable of when the Baltimore Ravens have two runners who strike terror into the heart of every defender.
After scoring on their opening drive in a huge early-season game against the Cincinatti Bengals, the Baltimore Ravens only scored one more touchdown the rest of the first half, as the offense sputtered. Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase bookended halftime with touchdowns, taking control of as close to a must-win game as it gets this early in the season, especially for a one-win Bengals team in a hypercompetitive AFC North.
In a preview of how the wildest second half of football on Sunday would unfold, Lamar Jackson marched right back down the field for a touchdown in four plays, cutting the Bengals lead to three. Cincinnati responded with a soul-draining 12 play, 70-yard touchdown drive that chewed up over half a quarter worth of clock. After Baltimore muffed the kickoff out of bounds on their own eight-yard line down ten to open the fourth quarter, things looked bleak. If the Ravens went three and out, putting their gassed defense back out on a short field, that might have been the game.
Instead, it took Lamar Jackson four plays, five if you include the holding penalty on Baltimore that added ten yards to the drive, to reach midfield. A few plays later, Jackson would throw a touchdown pass, silencing a raucous Cincinnati crowd who was getting ready to party just five game minutes ago.
It took just one play for the festive atmosphere to break out again, as Ja’Marr Chase caught a 70-yard touchdown pass on the next play to put the Bengals back up ten, and you had to figure that was the seminal “not Baltimore’s day” highlight.
Nope.
Ten plays later, Lamar Jackson provided the enduring highlight of the weekend, swatting away a 6’5” 265-pound defensive end like he was a small child, then firing a perfect laser into the back of the endzone, changing the entire tone of a game the Bengals had dictated to that point.
The last four Bengals drives had all ended in touchdowns, and just when it looked like they were on the cusp of making it five in a row, Burrow forced it to Chase, and Marlon Humphrey came up with the interception in his own end. Lamar Jackson drove the Ravens to the edge of field goal territory, and Justin Tucker tied the game. One Ravens stop later, and it was going to overtime.
As he demonstrated on that incredible touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter, Lamar Jackson sometimes feels like putting the ball on the ground before he starts the play, probably just to keep the defenders on the Bengals engaged in the fun and convinced they have a chance. On the opening drive of overtime, he approached the same area of the field that Burrow had just turned it over in, and Jackson dropped the snap on the Bengals 39 and Cincinnati recovered, giving them a chance to win.
But the Bengals did that thing all losing teams do and didn’t try to gain any more yards after approaching the very edge of field goal range, and after Evan McPherson shanked a 53 yarder, the Ravens decided to take the load off Lamar Jackson’s shoulders, and handed it to new star running back Derrick Henry, who took a handoff 51 yards on the next play to set up Justin Tucker with a game-winning chip shot field goal.
Lamar Jackson has always been that dude–no one wins two MVPs by the age of 27 by being ordinary–but the question at this point is not whether he can be the best player over 18 games, but whether he can do it when the Kansas City Swifties are in his way to the Super Bowl. Last year’s AFC Championship was about as close as any non-Brady combatant has come to slaying a healthy Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs, but Lamar knows that one touchdown in the AFC Championship is not going to get it done.
Enter Derrick Henry, perhaps the best complement Lamar Jackson has ever had. His ability to run between the tackles frees up Lamar to be the planet-eating football menace he is at his very best. Far too often in the past, it has felt like Lamar Jackson has had to carry Baltimore’s run game too (he was their leading rusher against KC in last year’s AFC title game), and the immense danger his skillset of pinpoint accuracy, good arm strength and elite running skills presents gets diminished when he has to do everything.
Now that’s not a concern, as Baltimore knows they can establish the run with their 250-pound battering ram, freeing Lamar Jackson up to pick teams apart with his legs or his arm, whichever the play demands. Maybe he’ll even bounce the ball on the turf once or twice before throwing a touchdown pass, just for fun. He has won two MVPs, but with Derrick Henry keeping defenses honest between the hashmarks now, this looks like the most dangerous version of Lamar Jackson that we have seen yet.
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