It’s Week 1 in the NFL finally. But after an offseason that had limited practice time and no preseason games, every team is left wondering what their opponent actually looks like this season.
For Cleveland Browns defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson, he thinks the Baltimore Ravens are going to look pretty similar to last year. But in saying so, he took a little bit of a shot at Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson.
“For the most part, yeah,” Richardson said to reporters Thursday. “They’re going to stick to who they are. I don’t think he [Lamar Jackson] turned into Aaron Rodgers no time soon. They’re going to stick to what they do best, and that’s run the football.”
The idea Baltimore’s offense is going to stay pretty much the same from last year makes a good bit of sense. They return 10 of 11 starters from last year’s record-breaking unit and with very little time to change up the scheme, Richardson’s belief is pretty logical. But it’s what he said about Jackson that will ruffle the most feathers.
Richardson likely meant that Jackson isn’t going to just sit in the pocket and throw the football. As we saw plenty of times last year, Jackson is more than capable of making all 11 defensive players look like amateurs if he gets out of the pocket and into open space. But the direct comparison to Rodgers is pretty unfair to Jackson as well and just not indicative of how well the Ravens quarterback played last season.
Jackson topped the NFL last season with 36 touchdown passes, good enough for a 9.0% touchdown rate. In Rodgers’ 15 years in the league, he’s thrown for 36-plus touchdowns just four times and had a 9.0% TD rate just once. If we’re comparing 2019 seasons, Jackson was head-and-shoulders a better passer than Rodgers, beating him in completion percentage, touchdown rate, yards-per-attempt, and passer rating. Jackson also won the NFL’s MVP award last season, partially for his ability on the ground but also for his arm.
Richardson might also want to go back to the pair of games Jackson had against the Browns last year. Jackson completed 67.7% of his passes for a combined 485 passing yards, six touchdown throws, and two interceptions (both of which came in Week 4, the team’s last loss of the 2019 regular season).
Richardson is certainly not the first to unfairly criticize Jackson’s ability to throw the football, even this offseason. But most of the unkind words and comparisons have come from fans and talking heads who need to drive ratings. For a player to think that is something else entirely.
Jackson has clearly been sensitive to that type of talk, going as far as to mock those that have called him a running back after a big-time performance in Week 1 of last season. With yet another person dismissing his ability to throw the football, don’t be shocked if Jackson tries to upstage the doubters to open this season too.
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