The Associated Press put out their All-Pro rosters for the 2019 season and no one was shocked to see Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson on the first-team offense. While he nearly got a unanimous consensus, Jackson was three votes shy of a full 50. While that shouldn’t bother me — because he did still win the award by an overwhelming margin — it still does.
The other three votes went to Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. An impressive quarterback deserving of praise to be sure but certainly not the best one of the season, no matter how you look at it. Jackson tops Wilson in nearly every category, both when passing the ball and when running it, proving to be the most dynamic player in the NFL in 2019, much less the best quarterback.
But let’s break down the passing and rushing stats for both quarterbacks to better see just how far apart Jackson and Wilson really were. I’ve bolded each line with which player has the better stat line to make it more obvious.
| Lamar Jackson | Russell Wilson | |
| Completion % | 66.1% | 66.1% |
| Passing yards | 3,127 | 4,110 |
| TD throws | 36 (led league) | 31 |
| TD % | 9.0% (led league) | 6.0% |
| INT % | 1.5% | 1.0% |
| Adjusted passing yards per attempt | 8.9 | 8.7 |
| Passer rating | 113.3 | 106.3 |
| Rushing yards | 1,206 (led QBs) | 342 |
| Rushing yards per attempt | 6.9 (led league) | 4.6 |
| Rushing touchdowns | 7 | 3 |
As you can plainly see, Jackson wins in almost every single category and many of them by a wide margin in spite of sitting in the fourth quarter of five games and being inactive completely for Week 17. Jackson effectively missed two full games and still beat Wilson by five passing touchdowns, 864 rushing yards and four more rushing touchdowns.
Where Wilson does win (passing yards and interception percentage), it’s more a symptom of Jackson not throwing nearly as often. Jackson proves that by having a better adjusted-passing-yards-per-attempt rate.
On top of being the better passer and runner in almost every category, Jackson was better than literally every NFL player in three important stats. His league-leading touchdown throws, TD% and average rushing yards per attempt all point to Jackson being the most efficient quarterback in the league this season — creating big plays and scoring points, which is what every player should be judged on primarily.
So if Jackson was clearly the best quarterback in the league by a pretty wide margin, then why didn’t all the voters agree? For some voters, it might not be all about the stats but about the impact they have for their respective teams and how much they’d be missed.
But even if we back off judging players purely by their stat sheet and instead talk about which player had the biggest impact for their team and the league, Jackson still wins by a landslide. No other player changed the position the way Jackson did this season, setting NFL and franchise records seemingly every week and creating a new standard of what an NFL quarterback could look like. He’s made his biggest previous doubter in former general manager Bill Polian go on record to rescind his unfair critiques of him in the process.
You don’t have to look back very far to see how Baltimore’s offense was dramatically different and far less efficient with another quarterback at the helm. Even if you want to look at Jackson’s rookie campaign compared to this season, it’s beyond evident how much he’s grown in all facets of the game, including leadership.
While Wilson has done the same thing in the past, Jackson pushed it to whole new levels in 2019 and dramatically altered a Ravens team that was expected to simply be mediocre instead of dominant and great.
Jackson isn’t ever going to be able to convince everyone he’s a special talent or even a good quarterback, and that’s fine. But anyone who legitimately watched all 15 of Jackson’s games and still doesn’t view him as the best quarterback of the season is apparently out of touch with the game in its current form and shouldn’t be allowed to take part in awarding the best players in the league.
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