For Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, there are no more excuses — Andscape

BALTIMORE – One quarter into the AFC Championship Game, it looked like Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens were finally going to get over the hump.

After a trademark surgical touchdown drive by Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes on the team’s first possession, the Ravens faced fourth-and-1 from their own 34-yard line, trailing 7-0, and Jackson took the snap. . He froze the defense for a moment before sprinting across the line for a 21-yard gain. Two plays later, Jackson ducked a pass rusher, ran back to the left, changed direction to the right, set his feet and threw a 30-yard bomb into the hands of rookie receiver Zay Flowers in the zone. annotation.

This was the kind of urgency needed not only to unseat the defending Super Bowl champions, but also to make them favorites in their own championship game.

But that would be Jackson’s only touchdown drive in the game, as the Ravens fell to the Chiefs 17-10, another disappointing postseason loss in a long list for the sixth-year quarterback, and an example of Jackson playing his worst ball when his team was the one that needed it the most.

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Typically, there are plenty of defenses for Jackson. The 32nd overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft has overcome many of the shortcomings (real and imagined) he had entering the league. His passing accuracy has always been a concern, so this season he increased it to 67.2%, the sixth best completion percentage of all quarterbacks (minimum 400 attempts). After a brutal playoff debut against the Los Angeles Chargers in 2019 (1 interception, 3 fumbles, 7 sacks), he bounced back a season later by simply winning the MVP trophy and tallying 4,333 yards (3,127 passing, 1,206 rushing ), 43 touchdowns. and the number 1 seed in the playoffs. This season, Jackson dusted the Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers, the two teams that played in the NFC Championship Game, to the tune of 690 total yards and six total touchdowns.

But on Sunday night, there was nothing defensible about what Jackson did.

Aside from his gymnastics on the first scoring drive and a slant pass he caught himself, Jackson missed throws he should have made, finishing the game completing 20 of 37 passes (54.1%) for 272 yards. He had just 67 passing yards midway through the third quarter. He held the ball for what seemed like five seconds too long, leading to four sacks, including a strip sack.

And in his worst moment of the game, with more than 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter and the Ravens trailing 17-7, Jackson threw the ball in triple coverage to tight end Isaiah Likely in the end zone, leading to an interception. exhausting than everyone but it sealed the loss.

“I saw them both [defenders] “I was following him and I didn’t want to throw him out of the end zone, I just tried to let him turn around and make a play,” Jackson said of the interception. “I thought it was going to be [pass interference]But it is what it is.”

Jackson might be excused for this in 2018 or even 2019, but he’s spent the last few weeks (and years) saying how closeted he finally was. After those two playoff losses, Jackson said some version of “I just have to move on.” As this season’s playoffs began, Jackson and the team reiterated how this season felt different for the quarterback, how locked in he seemed to be. Jackson didn’t celebrate much when the Ravens clinched the No. 1 seed in late December 2023 after a 56-19 win over the Miami Dolphins, and in the midst of that blowout, the team’s video department recorded him telling his teammates that “they will calm down.” Damn!

“Lamar has always been single-minded, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that way,” coach John Harbaugh told reporters a few weeks ago.

But when laying an egg during the biggest game of the season, when a Mahomes-led offense was held to just 17 points, there’s no escaping the fact that Jackson and the Ravens seem to weaken when the pressure ramps up to 100.

In six career playoff games, Jackson completed 57.4% of his passes for six touchdowns and six interceptions. He has also been fired 24 times. The Ravens have won only two of those games.

In the post-match press conference, Jackson was asked if he thought he tried to do too much on the field, which may have led to some of the mistakes. He slightly rejected that assessment.

“No, we’re trying to win,” he said. “I don’t think you’re doing too much when you’re trying to win. Did you think that?

This wasn’t the kind of performance Jackson could afford to have (again), not after demanding a trade in the offseason before signing what at the time was the richest contract in NFL history: five years and $260 million. Not after the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, Washington Commanders and Miami Dolphins made it known that they had no intention of acquiring Jackson after he made the trade request, and Falcons owner Arthur Blank said that the “ Jackson’s style of play can’t hold up. in the NFL.

And not being a black quarterback.

The adage that blacks “have to be twice as good to go half as far” is alive and well in the NFL, even as the number of black starting quarterbacks reached an all-time high of 14 this season. Being labeled as not “quarterback” enough by a media pundit or having a fellow player say “formula“Hitting you, a quarterback, is making you throw the ball, they are stupid (and encoded), but the noise gets louder and louder when you lead just one touchdown drive and have two turnovers in a game where your team only loses by seven points.

Unfortunately, Jackson has to win or be perfect to earn the respect of those who watch him play, and on Sunday night he did neither.

When asked what else he can do in the future beyond how focused and prepared he was coming into this game, Jackson kept it simple.

“We just have to put points on the board. That’s the question right now. “It’s nothing we could have done better to prepare for the game,” he stated. “We put points on the board and we’re talking about something else right now.

“I’m not frustrated at all. I’m angry about losing. We are one game away from the Super Bowl. We have been waiting all this time, all these moments for an opportunity like this and we fell short. But I feel like our team is going to build, this offseason we are going to do well, improve, work hard and try to be in this position again, but on the other hand, a victory.”

Before the playoffs began, Jackson went on former quarterback Tom Brady’s podcast and said he still had a grudge about not having won a Super Bowl yet, but believed the 2023 season was the “team to do it.”

But just like in 2018, 2019 and 2020, the Ravens came up short, and there’s no escaping the fact that until Jackson plays better in critical games, that won’t change anytime soon.