It appears Baltimore Ravens quarterback and 2019 NFL Most Valuable Player Lamar Jackson still hasn’t gotten over his team’s divisional round loss to the Tennessee Titans.
Back in January with the wound of the loss to the Titans still fresh, Jackson admitted it took some time to move past it in the days that followed, per Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic.
“I didn’t leave my room, to be honest,” Jackson said. “I wasn’t frustrated. I was hurt. I was depressed. It was like, ‘I don’t even want to go outside right now. I’m not happy right now.’ There was nothing to celebrate.”
More recently, Jackson was a guest on Sirius XM NFL Radio with Alex Marvez and Gil Brandt and said he was still “puzzled” about what happened, as transcribed by Pro Football Talk.
“I [still am] puzzled, like, just looking at highlights and stuff,” Jackson admitted. “I’m like, ‘I don’t know what happened.’ Like, we had good plays. We had good drives. We’ll hit a hump one play. They steal the momentum, and it’s, you know, the NFL is like a momentum game. Like, whoever’s got momentum, they’re going to score points. They might come out with a victory, and that’s what it was. We was flat the whole night. That game was not on our defense. I feel like we just didn’t execute on offense. [If] we put more points up, it’d be a great game.”
The Louisville product isn’t alone, though. There are plenty of people who follow the NFL that still don’t understand how the Titans could have beaten the Ravens, an overwhelming favorite in the game.
Jackson also felt as though his team had already given up long before the final outcome was decided.
“We’ve got to elevate at some point in the game,” Jackson said. “I don’t feel we did that, even though we scored one in the third quarter or something. But it was like when we scored, we didn’t get excited. It was like we already lost. We can’t do that no more. That’s what I’ve seen, including myself.”
Throughout the game, Tennessee’s defense found a way to frustrate Jackson and the Ravens’ high-powered offense, while also forcing three key turnovers that no doubt changed the course of the contest.
It also helped that Derrick Henry ran wild, and so much so that he was using Earl Thomas as a lead blocker on one play.
When it was all said and done, the Titans won 28-12, and those 12 points were the lowest amount the Ravens had scored in any game during the 2019 season.
Despite the tough loss, Jackson and Co. will once again be in the conversation as a Super Bowl contender in 2020. And, if the Titans can make the right moves this offseason, we could see a rematch in next year’s playoffs.