Lamar Jackson flips the script on his critics

Countless hours were spent this summer debating whether or not the league had “figured out Lamar Jackson.” Last Monday night, Jackson finally had a chance to retort.

But he saved his closing argument for Sunday night.

His defense in the case of “Critics Versus Lamar Jackson” started on the Baltimore Ravens’ first offensive possession of the NFL season. Facing a 2nd-and-7, Jackson aligned under center and after carrying out a play-action fake to the left side, the QB rolled to his right. After taking a quick look downfield, and not liking what he saw, Jackson tucked the football and started upfield, heading out from the shadow of his own goalposts.

In the blink of an eye, the Ravens had 1st-and-10 near the Las Vegas Raiders’ 30-yard line:

This, in a nutshell, is the difficulty with “figuring out Lamar Jackson.” Because you might have the perfect defense called, and his natural ability erases that play-call in an instant. This is the exact kind of play that, when this discussion flared up over the summer, had me reach out to Diante Lee, who writes about the game for Pro Football Focus. When he is not dropping knowledge on the timeline, Lee is a high school defensive coordinator in California. He knows football, and defense, inside and out.

Exactly.

Then the second half began, and as the producers on the Manningcast figured out how to silence the fire alarm, Jackson went back to erasing angles to evade another sack and turn near-disaster into yet another first down:

That is the difficulty with declaring that the league has figured him out. Because even when you do everything right as a defense, he is going to find a way to escape, to do something you did not expect or anticipate. The sport is loosely-controlled chaos, and in the midst of it is a blur of a quarterback that can erase angles, break contain, beat your spy to the edge and in a blur, flick a throw downfield to a wide-open receiver. A wide-open receiver because the fear of the quarterback himself made you do something different in coverage, exposing a potential weakness elsewhere.

And probably cost you a few hours of sleep along the way.

Now is Jackson the most complete NFL quarterback? No. Is he the best pure passer in the NFL today? Again, no. But when you start counting him out, and the timeline starts turning on him, he delivers a moment like this in the downfield passing game:

Shades of Mac Jones to DeVonta Smith in the National Championship Game, the design of the play isolates a wide receiver on a linebacker, and Jackson drops in a dime to set the Ravens up with first and goal.

Then, after the Raiders managed to tie the game, Jackson immediately responded on Baltimore’s next offensive play:

After this run, which put the Ravens into field goal range for kicker Justin Tucker, Louis Riddick up in the booth remarked that the Raiders were “throwing everything” at the Ravens, but “number eight is the great equalizer.”

Which, is kind of the point I’m trying to make. Thank you Louis.

Unfortunately for Jackson and the Ravens, they fell in overtime to the Raiders. Jackson himself played a role, putting the ball on the turf in the extra frame, giving Las Vegas a chance to win.

The loss set up an early must-win scenario for the Ravens, as they looked to avoid the dreaded 0-2 start on Sunday Night Football against the Kansas City Chiefs.

And avoid that 0-2 start they did, with Baltimore pulling out the one-point win, 36-35.

As we saw back in Week 1, Jackson’s elusiveness and incredible athletic ability played a huge role. Whether it was on this jump pass touchdown:

Or on this sprint to the pylon to get the Ravens into the end zone again:

Jackson showed again and again how difficult it is to defend him, even if you have the right defenses called.

And in the end, on this night, it was Jackson who emerged victorious. It was a team win, as the defense put the Baltimore offense in position to close the game, and Odafe Oweh made an early case for Defensive Rookie of the Year by forcing (and then recovering) a critical fumble in the closing minutes. But in the end, it was Jackson, with the ball in his hands, rewarding John Harbaugh’s aggressive — and correct — decision to go for it on a fourth down rather than give Patrick Mahomes one last chance.

(Although, Harbaugh did check with Jackson first):

Perhaps most notable is this aspect of the win. One of the biggest criticisms of Jackson is that he is too one-dimensional of a quarterback. That when Baltimore is playing with the lead, he is tough to beat, but when forced to play from behind, the Ravens struggle because he is not a complete quarterback.

On Sunday night against the Chiefs, the Ravens fell behind by 11 points on two different occasions. And yet, Jackson and the Baltimore offense kept coming. Perhaps that should have been expected, given how the Ravens got the crowd ready for the game.

Lamar coming.

Now detractors will point to the pair of interceptions he threw early in the game, or to the mistakes he made back in Week 1, and continue to claim that the league has “figured him out.” But as Louis Riddick pointed out last week, Jackson is the great equalizer.

Tonight was just his closing argument.