IF LAMAR JACKSON IS “THE GREATEST QUARTERBACK EVER,” WHY IS HE 2-4?
His coach says he’ll be the all-timer, and though his numbers support him as the best ever as a dual threat, Jackson keeps losing in the postseason while Patrick Mahomes has won three Super Bowls
He is learning, rudely, that winning the MVP award twice means nothing without a championship. The double threats aren’t quite as magnificent when we peruse Lamar Jackson. In six seasons, he has rushed for 5,258 yards and thrown for 125 touchdowns, and as the Baltimore Ravens start training camp, he has missed both practices with an illness deeper than a cold.
September, October, November and December work for Jackson. Parts of January do. February never does. He is 27 and cannot reach a Super Bowl, having played in six postseason games and lost four. Patrick Mahomes, drafted in 2017, has won three titles and aims for Tom Brady’s seven. Jackson, drafted a year later, can tell us he has lost 25 pounds since 2022 but can’t explain why he commits turnovers, misses open receivers and loses the biggest games.
Does he lack the courage and winning mentality of Mahomes? He is hardly the first athletic great to encounter faults in the playoffs, but we are beginning to wonder why someone who has led his team to a 58-19 record — 13-4 last season, 14-2 in 2019 — stumbles when pro football matters the most. The Ravens have added a still-imposing Derrick Henry to their backfield and have receivers in Zay Flowers and Mark Andrews. So how will Jackson emerge as the reigning MVP? Brilliant in the first four months and shaky in the fifth?
That pattern won’t work.
Which is why Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who isn’t receiving the glorious media coverage of brother Jim in Los Angeles, explained to Jackson last week that he will become the best quarterback in league history. It’s a nice thought, sure, but not very realistic. He can’t keep whiffing in the playoffs when Mahomes thrives, which comes after Brady thrived. For this to ever happen in a lifetime, Jackson might want to win his first championship in February.
“The vision that we have together is that Lamar Jackson is going to become and be known and be recognized as the greatest quarterback ever to play in the history of the National Football League,” Harbaugh said. “It's going to happen by Lamar, his work ethic and his brilliant talent, by all of us pouring into that effort together as a team and by the grace of God and God's goodwill.”
God might care. God might not. Somehow, when Sunday’s topic turned to Jackson, Harbaugh needed a mouthful — two minutes and 43 seconds — to lay a stake into the national media. He says we haven’t been fair to Jackson. I don’t agree. Last Christmas, I praised him for bringing new creative twists after refusing to use an agent last year, when he outlasted the Ravens and won a five-year, $260 million contract. I loved how he challenged the world after winning on the road against San Francisco.
“I don’t want them to pick us. I like being the underdog,” Jackson said. “I believe we play better when we’re doubted and when people aren’t choosing us to win. I feel like we play better all the time, so just do it all the way to February. That’s all I ask.”
He mentioned February. OK. He lost the AFC Championship Game to Mahomes and Kansas City, 17-10, in late January. He made two turnovers and completed only 20 of 37 passes. He was burned by the Chiefs and, once again, didn’t play well. Media opinion-makers took the proper stance: Lamar stunk. Harbaugh says we were dead wrong.
“There's a lot of great things said about Lamar, but there's a lot of stuff that's said that you just got to scratch your head about and kind of wonder, 'What's that person even thinking?’ But we take it personally,” he said. “All his life, Lamar Jackson has been a guy who's been answering those same questions," Harbaugh said. “I’m talking about since he was a kid. Junior high, high school, college, the draft. The success he's had in the (NFL), again, it still comes up.
“OK, now he's still growing. He's got a growth mindset. He's going to get better and better, no doubt. But what does he have to do to prove himself to some people? Right?”
Win.
Reach the Super Bowl.
Win.
Until he does, it’s odd when Jackson is challenging Troy Aikman for use of their uniform number — eight — in a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office complaint. Turns out Aikman, a Hall of Fame quarterback and a voice on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” has used the number to market products such as beach towels and energy drinks. Jackson says no, claiming Aikman is “likely to cause confusion, or cause mistake, or to deceive” when people want to buy Lamar’s stuff. What?
According to attorneys, Jackson has “expended considerable time, effort, and expense in promoting, advertising, and popularizing the number 8 in connection with his personality and fame" and “is well-known by this number due to his notoriety and fame, along with his promotion of this number in his trademarks and media coverage.” So, Aikman should dump his number in a courtroom?
He has won three Super Bowls. Jackson never has played in a Super Bowl.
Troy wins, which he can explain on the night of Oct. 21, with a secondary No. 8 in front of him.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.