Is Lamar Jackson’s game sustainable?
Yahoo Sports’ Scott Pianowski and Matt Harmon discuss how the Baltimore QB will fare in 2022.
Video Transcript
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SCOTT PIANOWSKI: I ask you, Matt, Lamar Jackson, he's won an MVP, hasn't won a playoff game. They didn't make the playoffs last year. He's playing for his new contract. That contract stuff is in the news every day.
Is he-- is Lamar Jackson's game sustainable? Do you think he's going to improve as a pocket passer? Will he learn how to beat the blitz this year? There can be noise in those stats year over year sometimes, too.
What's-- I think you have to have a take on Lamar Jackson before you get deeper into this offense. Are you in or out? What's your traffic light on Lamar Jackson right now?
MATT HARMON: He won one playoff game, right?
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Did he? Oh, maybe he did. OK.
MATT HARMON: Yeah, yeah. He won-- he did win one, but yeah, they have not made a deep postseason run with Lamar Jackson. But I love Lamar this year. I'm really excited about him because number one, I think when you look at the way they were playing last year to start, before injuries kind of destroyed that entire offense and injuries obviously hit Lamar Jackson as well, he was playing pretty good football from a passing standpoint.
I mean, he's never going to be Patrick Mahomes. He's never going to be Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers. We know that, but I think he was a solidly above average to very good passer to start last year with not very good players around him, especially on the offensive line.
I think that's one of the keys for this team, and they did have their rookie center Tyler Linderbaum got hurt. It sounds like it's not super serious, but we don't want like a cascading effect here where the offensive line starts to fall apart. Because I think that's the key for this offense, the fact that, I don't care if their running backs get-- I mean, I care, right? I want JK Dobbins to be out there. He sounds like he's a really exciting player.
But the bigger thing to me here is if the offensive line has been Ronnie Stanley's healthy, like, Tyler Linderbaum hits the ground running. They have a better solution at right tackle than Andre Villanueva last year and who had to move to left tackle. Like, it was just a nightmare.
If that line can protect Jackson better, I think he can be, again, a somewhere between very good to great passer this year that obviously with the rushing boost that he gives you is going to make him an elite fantasy quarterback. I believe I have him as my quarterback, too, this year, and I feel very good about that behind Josh Allen.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: That's what I saw from Jackson last-- and again, there were circumstances. As you said, the line was a work in progress and they were playing guys out of position. They were so riddled with injuries. They didn't have the team on the field that they wanted, and Jackson had injuries, too. To the point that he hardly played in the final quarter of the season just to clean up the Jackson in the playoffs.
You're right. He is 1 and 3 in the playoffs. He did beat Tennessee two years ago. They've only scored 52 points in his four playoff games, and I know quarterback rating is a very buggy stat, but it's a good back of envelope. 68.3 quarterback rating in the playoffs, three touchdown passes, five interceptions.
Of course, he's a great runner. He's gone over 100 yards a couple of times in the playoffs, and you can't-- you always have to include that as part of Jackson's value. So I don't want to be unfair there.
