Lamar Jackson cements his MVP award

Going into this week, I had no doubt Jackson would be winning the MVP award. He led all quarterbacks in touchdown passes, all while throwing less often than his award competition. When added to his impressive rushing stats, he was beginning to pull away from everyone else.

But with yet another game in which Jackson completed at least 65% of his passes and threw for another five touchdowns while adding 86 more yards on the ground and breaking Michael Vick’s rushing record . . . It’s over. Jackson could lay complete eggs in the final two weeks and I still think the MVP voters would make it a unanimous decision to hand him the award.

Jackson has three games this season in which he’s thrown five touchdown passes. And in each of those, Jackson has been benched in the fourth quarter thanks to the games being blowout wins. But what if those games remained close and Jackson was forced to play all 60 minutes in a shootout — something his MVP competitors have used to pad their stats? What would his stats look like then? How many games would Jackson have thrown for six, seven or even eight touchdowns? Could Jackson have legitimately broken that NFL record too?

The fact I’m even thinking about it and questioning it is what leads me to believe Jackson’s name is already engraved on the award but he just hasn’t been handed it yet.