LAMAR JACKSON’S CROWD CAN SHOUT MVP, WITH BROCK PURDY AS MR. IRRELEVANT

On a holiday when Andy Reid angrily shoved Travis Kelce, as Taylor Swift grimaced, Jackson was humiliating the 49ers and a pick-riddled quarterback while the Baltimore Ravens made a Super Bowl case

     As the reindeer know, 2024 will bring creative new twists for the NFL and its servants. We know this after watching Lamar Jackson prove again why Scrooge was worth fighting, why he stung the Baltimore Ravens for a deal deserving of his talents, why he persevered until he received $260 million over five years. He likes being doubted, as he was Monday night.

     “I don’t want them to pick us. I like being the underdog,” he said. “I believe we play better when we’re doubted and when people aren’t choosing us to win the game. I feel like we play better all the time, so just do it all the way to February. That’s all I ask.”

     Did he say February, as in the Super Bowl? We’re in complete agreement, having watched Jackson lay more material for the league’s Most Valuable Player trophy as his defense thrashed a supposed frontrunner, Brock Purdy, for a Mr. Irrelevant-warranted four interceptions. Can we see the Ravens romp to an AFC title when only the top-seeded team receives a first-round bye in the playoffs? Said Jackson, ripping a doubter after a 33-19 road donging of the San Francisco 49ers: “You can’t just discredit us. We grown men, we got to feed our families. He can have his opinion but just don’t be talking like that. That’s very disrespectful. Our record not no fluke. We play ball and we showed that. But he needs to keep doing his job and just don’t come off like that towards us. I guess he wanted more views on his little channel. We’re going to leave it at that. We got the W. I don’t really care about performance. That’s what happened. On Christmas, I got my gift.”

     Another could be coming. “I thought Lamar had an MVP performance tonight,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “It takes a team to create a performance like that, but it takes a player to play at that level, to play at an MVP level, it takes a player to play that way. Lamar was all over the field doing everything.”

     And we know this about the new year after Andy Reid, no longer having fun and stealing lunchtime food, angrily shoved his right shoulder into Travis Kelce’s left arm. Not only was Taylor Swift in the stands in Kansas City, so were her mother, father and brother, who were watching when he fired his helmet on the sideline. Seems the head coach didn’t want an attendant handing the headgear to Kelce, who suddenly felt like an ex-hero failing in front of his lady.

     “Andy Reid is, like, no, don’t give him the helmet. He doesn’t deserve it when he launches it like that,” Tony Romo said on the CBS telecast. “And he goes, Travis, come on now, you don’t want to lose this team.”

     It would require a miracle of offensive weaponry, while eliminating a sneaking suspicion that too much Swift equals bad blood, for the Chiefs to win their third Super Bowl in five years. Their quarterback has been reduced to barn fodder. No longer is Patrick Mahomes an MVP candidate but the unhelped meltdown king of a minus-18-yards performance in the first quarter, which led the Las Vegas Raiders to slay the trenches and steal two touchdowns on back-to-back turnovers in seven seconds. This came on an afternoon when the Chiefs dropped to 3-4 at home and fell to 9-6, which means they’ve fallen from the No. 1-seed race.

     “I take full responsibility for the way we played offensively there,” Reid said.

     “I gave them two touchdowns,” Mahomes said. “We have one good game, one bad game.”

     That won’t work in the postseason, or when Miami plays in Baltimore this Sunday to see who claims the best spot in the conference. It’s hard to believe decision-makers weren’t sold on Jackson last offseason in free agency, believing his running skills would lead to a shorter career. Among them were Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, who bought into the spiel of Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank as Jackson was unusually serving as his own agent: “Looking at it objectively, I’d say there’s some concern over how long he can play his style of game. Hopefully, a long time … but he’s missed five, six games each of the last two years. Each game counts a lot in our business.”

     He has played all 15 this season, throwing for 19 scores and rumbling for 786 yards on the ground, including a 30-yarder that forced all-world linebacker Fred Warner to miss and put the 49ers in a hole. In the second half, Jackson hit Gus Edwards on a 39-yard heave that set up a touchdown toss to Nelson Agholor before, 18 seconds later, finding Zay Flowers in the end zone for a 30-12 lead. Jackson is 20-1 against NFC teams in his career. Another could be arriving in Las Vegas in a few weeks, thanks largely to new offensive coordinator Todd Monken, who won two national titles at Georgia and may add the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

     “Man, he’s up,” Jackson said of Monken’s imagination. “He’s so detailed out. He wants everything run the correct way. I was trying to hold off on that, but he’s going to curse. Every meeting, guaranteed.”

     Said Monken: “I had a great job and I was only going to leave it for an elite opportunity. This was that — from an organization on down, from ownership to personnel to head coach to having Lamar. I saw it as a challenge in terms of what we could do from an offensive standpoint. It’s been everything I hoped it would be.”

     They were at their best in Santa Clara, where Purdy and Christian McCaffrey had been so honest about supporting each other’s MVP chances when Jackson stole it from both. So much for the belief that the 49ers would sweep through NFC competition. Is Purdy capable of sabotaging his team again in the playoffs after tearing an elbow ligament early in the NFC championship game? After throwing his fourth pick, he left the game with a shoulder stinger and gave way to Sam Darnold, who led the Niners to a late touchdown.

     “It's the NFL,” Purdy said. “We have some opportunities coming up, and we still got two games left in the regular season before we get into playoffs. For me, I'm trying to look at the big picture of what we're trying to do, what our team goals are. But at the same time, I have to look myself in the mirror and ask myself why or how that happened and why I made those decisions. Our team came ready to play, and for me to make some decisions like that ... it's not fair to these guys. I have to realize that and understand that, and I have to get better for my team.”

     Said 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan: “He's played this long, he never had a game like this. It's pretty unusual. That's the reality of the NFL. I'm not saying it's bound to happen, but I wish he didn't have as many picks today.”

     As for McCaffrey, he had moments but didn’t make his MVP case for undersold running backs on Jackson’s sterling evening. Before the game, Purdy had said, “Christian should be MVP. I’m the guy who hands him the ball off and then I turn back and watch. He does everything for us. Runs the ball well, catches the ball. So, in my eyes, he’s MVP.” Both men can move aside.

     “He can do everything," Flowers said of Jackson. "You (saw) it. He ran it. He threw it. He led the team. That's the MVP. You lead your team, you have the best record in the NFL, and he just comes out and continues to come out and do what he (does) game in and game out even though people (say), ‘He can't do this. He can't do that,’ and he comes out and proves them wrong every time.”

     Said linebacker Roquan Smith: “I think if anybody watched the game (or) if anybody watches football this season and watched the Baltimore Ravens, they know for a fact Lamar Jackson is the MVP, hands down. Anyone that watches football and knows football and sees the type of impact he has on the game — not even stat-wise, but just individually, the plays that he makes quarter in and quarter out, play in and play out — compare his film to anyone else in the league. Then, I would love to hear what anyone else has to say after that.”

     The league has been perilous for quarterbacks this season, when more lead-tier players at the position have been injured. But Mahomes has thrown 14 picks and slogged to a 46.4 quarterback rating since Week 8. The Chiefs allowed Tyreek Hill to sign with the Dolphins while not fixing their shabby receiving corps, which has pushed Miami’s speed merchants and coach Mike McDaniel toward championship contention. “With the advent and heavy push of social media, I think it's really hard to ignore the noise, so to speak, or not hear it,” McDaniel said after a 22-20 home victory over Dallas. “I think you're going to hear it. I thought this is a big win for this team, because it's always big when you do something that internally you know that you're capable of, and when it comes to fruition, it's pretty satisfying."

     Doesn’t he also realize that his sideline apparel, which includes pants pulled up near the knees and upscale Gucci beige run sneakers, also will be mocked when he stands thin at 5 feet 9 and is only 40? When HBO’s “Hard Knocks” showed up for a late-season run, McMahon told his team, “It’s going to be fun as f— doing it.” He takes a different approach to life, such as when he speaks to the media and says, “Sorry, I got distracted. I just love me a crisp, clean pair of shoes.”

     We’ll have another royal brouhaha in Baltimore, where Peyton Manning and Tom Brady can stop pulling for McCaffrey. “He is definitely in my mind the MVP favorite and according to his quarterback too, Brock Purdy, who says some amazing things about him,” Brady said. “And I know you'll say, because you're a great team player, the Super Bowl is the only thing that really matters (for a running back). Do you kind of think an award like that would be pretty nice?”

     I speak for America in saying we were tired of watching Swift at games. Reid welcomed her, as did Mahomes. “At first, I felt like everybody kind of stayed away, just let (Kelce) do what he was doing. And then he started bringing Taylor around when he realized how cool of a person she is,” Mahomes said. “There was a couple of jokes here and there at the beginning, but she's just part of Chiefs Kingdom. Now she's part of the team.” When she was caught consoling the quarterback’s wife after the 20-14 loss, it’s time to say of the Chiefs, “Is It Over Now?”

     We’re not sure about Lamar Jackson’s love life. Nor do I care. “They still have the same quarterback,” said Shanahan, “who always will be as big of an issue as there is.” The 49ers know. The Dolphins will know Sunday. The AFC will know when postseason games are played as the Ravens take a week off.

     And the MVP? In a year when Joe Burrow and Aaron Rodgers were injured, while Mahomes and Jalen Hurts have underperformed, the owner who strung along Jackson for so long should feel relieved.

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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.