But You Do Have To Call Him Mister Jackson
Lamar Jackson has crushed another opponent. But that’s not the most interesting thing about the dynamic Baltimore Ravens quarterback. Immediately after the 42-21 win over the New York Jets, a lineup of players he’d just pulverized lined up to get an autograph from the third-year star.
In a league of stars, the first-year starter is the one the players now idolize. Think about that.
The impact of Jackson and the irresistible offence he leads is THE story if the 2019 NFL season. He is elusive with the ball the way the Roadrunner was elusive. And the rest of the NFL is Wile E. Coyote in futile pursuit. He’s been surprisingly accurate passing the ball. With two games left in the regular season the Ravens are 12-2 and Jackson is a lock for the NFL MVP. If you want to pick the Ravens to win the Super Bowl the odds are dropping precipitously (-715 at the moment).
The story of Jackson is, of course, that he was not considered a good enough passer to become a starting NFL quarterback— let alone an MVP candidate. He dropped to the end of the first round (no. 32) of the NFL draft before the Ravens rescued a morose Jackson from the green room. Even then, he was Baltimore’s second choice in the round.
Most teams who’d seen him tear apart opponents at Louisville simply refused to believe that he could translate into the NFL where running QBs are ground into hamburger by the defensive demons they face.
And while the Ravens deny it, there was a fallback position that they w=could convert Jackson into a receiver if he failed at QB. Jackson’s cocksure attitude— and his mother’s role in his career— did nothing to convince teams that Jackson’s Heisman Trophy could translate into an MVP. He was branded a headache that few wanted to assume. (Confession: I count myself among the many skeptics.)
But the Ravens, a consistently successful team over the previous decades, saw something no one else did. They took the risk on Jackson, grooming him behind star QB Joe Flacco, then creating an offence that emphasized his two-way threat when the immobile Flacco was let go go to Denver last winter. Again, there was little belief in the NFL’s culture that Jackson could succeed where so many others had failed.
But from the beginning of the year, Jackson and his offence haven’t simply beaten teams. They’re blitzed them. From an opening-game 59-10 destruction of Miami, they’ve surpassed 33 points scored nine times this year— including the feasting on the Jets Thursday. The formula is simple. Establish a running game featuring Jackson and a posse of bruising running backs. When defences start stacking the line to stop the running Jackson picks them apart passing as they go to single coverage.
The results were there again on Thursday. Jackson passed for 212 yards and ran for 86 yards— including an impressive 25-yard scamper. It’s hard not to think that the NFL is about to enter an age when more teams will try to find an athletic two-way QB and run a power offence.
Except we have been here before. Colin Kaepernick of San Francisco blitzed the NFL in 2012 with a combo run/ pass attack after starter Alex Smith suffered a concussion. He led the team to a Super Bowl appearance, losing to (irony alert) the Baltimore Ravens. During the 2013 season, Kaepernick helped the 49ers reach the NFC Championship Game. Defensive coordinators seemingly had to no answers for his run/pass option..
But by 2015, the magic was gone. Suddenly, Kaepernick was getting beat up running the ball and being sacked 64 times behind a porous offensive line in 2015-16. Kaepernick went 3-16 in his final two seasons in San Fran— including his infamous sit-down during the anthem at a preseason game in 2016. He has not played an NFL game since.
His on-field downfall was, in part, why so many wasted no part of Jackson.
For many in the hidebound NFL tradition, Kaepernick’s inevitable surrender to injury from being exposed to hits spells the same fate for Jackson. One day, they say, he won’t get away with the sexy moves while running the ball or be able to escape a blitz while he sits in the pocket. Defensive coaches will spend the offseason preparing to ambush him in 2020.
Perhaps. But that won’t stop someone in next April’s draft for seeking out the next Lamar Jackson to see if they, too, can’t catch lightning in the bottle. Or from fans enjoying the sheer pleasure of watching Jackson break tacklers’ ankles and confound defensive backs with his rifle throws.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also a best-selling author whose new book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports And Why The Free Market Could Save Them is now available on brucedowbigginbooks.ca.