Stud and Dud: QB Lamar Jackson

Jackson has routinely been our player of the game this season and he’s been stellar. But this wasn’t a very good game from the MVP frontrunner in a number of ways.

He picked up plenty of yards on the ground, rushing for 101 yards and a touchdown. His legs helped keep drives alive but it was his arm that detracted from what was a great effort otherwise.

On a day when the 49ers defense tested Jackson to be accurate and thread passes into tight windows, he wasn’t and didn’t. Big incompletions on third downs that were behind their relatively wide-open intended receivers stung and stuck out. Had he hit guys like Mark Andrews and Willie Snead when they were wide open, Jackson could have continued drives and they might have been able to get out to a nice lead over San Francisco instead of playing it close for all 60 minutes.

His fumble was also costly and at a terrible time. Though it was a great play by the defender to get his hands around the ball and yank it out, it’s another ding against Jackson’s day. And the fact it came on a third-quarter drive that had been going really well and looked primed for points only stings even more.

Jackson redeemed himself in a big way at the end of the game, however. When the Ravens needed him to drive down the field with his arm to win the game, he was a perfect 3-for-3, including some tight squeezes in traffic. It doesn’t completely make up for his awful throws earlier in the game or his fumble but Jackson got his team into the win column and ultimately, that’s all that actually matters.

Without Jackson’s unique talents, Baltimore doesn’t win this game. He was able to put the offense on his back several times and especially at the end of the game to win it. It’s part of what makes him such an exciting player even when he has a pretty awful game otherwise.