Lamar Jackson had himself quite the day in the Ravens’ 49-13 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. The second-year quarterback threw for three touchdowns and a perfect passer rating. He also broke out the signature touchdown run of his young career.
It was such an impressive performance that Jackson had his own teammate playing cheerleader from the sidelines.
The official Ravens Twitter account shared video from late in Sunday’s game as running back Mark Ingram led actual “MVP” chants from the sidelines. This game was in Cincinnati, but plenty of Ravens fans made the trip — enough to make the MVP chants audible from the field.
Just because Lamar Jackson is fast, doesn’t mean he can’t throw from the pocket. Doug Farrar takes one analyst to task for this assumption.
It’s a common assumption when evaluating running quarterbacks that those quarterbacks are better on broken or designed plays in which they leave the pocket and go “schoolyard,” making things up as they go along. Sometimes it’s true, but other times, it’s an automatic label that doesn’t hold water.
Lamar Jackson is one of the most dynamic running quarterbacks in NFL history. He’s on pace to break Michael Vick’s single-season record of 1,039 rushing yards by a quarterback, set in 2006. And there’s no doubt that what Jackson does when he tucks and runs is explosive, spectacular and highlight-worthy. This 47-yard touchdown run on Sunday in Baltimore’s 49-13 thwacking of the Bengals is one of the better examples.
But to assume Jackson can’t throw from the pocket just because he can scald defenses with his feet is something we should be past when we look at quarterbacks of Jackson’s type. Whether it’s Vick later in his career or Randall Cunningham later in his career, or any number of quarterbacks in the modern day who are competing for the 2019 Most Valuable Player award, we are clearly in an era where quarterbacks of a certain stripe can actually do more than one thing to bring value to their teams.
But there was a reach back to the old days in the CBS broadcast of the game. Color announcer Rich Gannon, generally one of the more astute members of his profession, had this to say with 12:18 left in the first quarter, right after Jackson led his team downfield with more than one nice throw from the pocket, and finished it off with a 2-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mark Andrews:
“The Ravens do such a good job changing the launch point for Lamar Jackson. He rarely throws the ball from the pocket. They get him out on the edges, they cut the field in half, and he throws the ball so well and so accurately on the move.”
To be clear, this wasn’t Gannon slamming Jackson in any way. But when we look at the stats, we see that the “he rarely throws the ball from the pocket” statement is quite incorrect. Per Sports Info Solutions, Jackson has attempted 240 passes from the pocket this season, completing 134 for 1,611 yards, 10 touchdowns and five interceptions, and a passer rating of 95.9. This season, Jackson has more attempts from the pocket than Kirk Cousins, Mitchell Trubisky or Josh Allen.
Furthermore, Jackson isn’t one of the league’s more prolific out-of-pocket passers, probably because when he’s out of the pocket, he’s most likely running. Here’s a short list of the quarterbacks who have more passing attempt outside the pocket than Jackson’s 34: Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, Gardner Minshew, Carson Wentz, Josh Allen, Derek Carr, Baker Mayfield, Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford.
So maybe we shouldn’t assume what we have always assumed. The intention here is not to go after Gannon specifically — if we’re going to go after anyone for their Lamar Jackson takes over time, it would always be Bill Polian — but it is a kind request for announcers and analysts to watch what Lamar Jackson is doing, and to understand and communicate that it’s not at all like the historical stereotype.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar has also covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
The Ravens are hitting the point of the season where championship-caliber teams differentiate themselves, and they’re only getting better.
The Baltimore Ravens were supposed to beat the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 10. With Cincinnati winless and having a rookie quarterback getting his first NFL start, it seemed obvious that Baltimore was going to move to 7-2. But the beating the Ravens put on the Bengals proves they’re hitting their stride at the best possible time.
Before kickoff, I noted that this could be a trap game for Baltimore. While they were clearly the superior team on paper, we’ve seen the Ravens embarrass themselves previously under similar circumstances. In fact, it’s a familiar hole they’d fallen into too many times under coach John Harbaugh right as they looked to be on a roll and near the top of the league. But not this week and not this season apparently.
Baltimore’s offense got off to a quick start and never relented, finding room on the ground and through the air against the hapless Bengals. Quarterback Lamar Jackson had another brilliant game, going 15-of-17 for 223 yards, three passing touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 passer rating. He also torched Cincinnati on the ground to the tune of 65 yards and a touchdown, including his highlight-reel 47-yard run. It was a finely tuned game from the starting offense that saw them hang five total touchdowns before putting in backups in the fourth quarter.
The defense got in on the action as well, shutting down the Bengals offense. They pressured quarterback Ryan Finley, largely held running back Joe Mixon down and made two big plays, returning an interception and a fumble for touchdowns. What had been the worst unit on the team earlier this season has quickly turned around into an explosive and dangerous defense.
And that’s really the look of the entire team right now. They’ve gotten better with each and every game. They’re stronger than they were in Week 3 and far more dynamic both on offense and defense. They’ve beaten up on the top teams in the league and are now destroying the teams they should be beating. For as easy as that sounds in theory, look at how the Indianapolis Colts, Los Angeles Rams, Buffalo Bills, New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs all lost in Week 10 to teams with no better than a .500 record.
This is the point where championship-caliber teams start to differentiate themselves. Injuries have piled up on all 32 teams, and there’s more than enough game film to establish weaknesses and mismatches. Yet Baltimore is the only team actually getting better right now.
With everything coming together on defense and opponents having no answer for Jackson and this unique offense, Baltimore is unquestionably one of the best teams in the league right now. And considering they’re built for cold-weather football, the Ravens are looking really scary. If they can keep this level of play up, there’s no reason to think Baltimore shouldn’t be a front-runner for the Super Bowl.
Here’s what the Ravens’ Week 10 win over the Cincinnati Bengals taught us about Baltimore entering the second half of the 2019 season.
The Baltimore Ravens avoided falling into a trap after their upset win over the New England Patriots, easily taking care of business against the Cincinnati Bengals with a 49-13 win. The team has risen to 7-2 atop the AFC North. With their Week 10 win over the Bengals, we know quite a lot more about where Baltimore sits entering the second half of their season.
Here are the three biggest takeaways from the Ravens’ Week 10 victory:
1. Baltimore is hitting its stride
AP Photo/Frank Victores
The Ravens got off to a hot start, going 2-0 with Lamar Jackson looking unstoppable. But then they lost the next two games with a defense that was frequently picked on and an offense that was struggling at times. Baltimore looked like it had patched up some of its weak spots in weeks 5 and 6 but still didn’t look like a real Super Bowl threat.
Then the Ravens went into Seattle and dominated the Seahawks in Week 7. It continued in Week 9 with an even more dominant over the previously undefeated Patriots. Both the offense and defense have been playing at a high level in recent weeks, and it has the Ravens well on their way to their second straight AFC North title.
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It was a typical early season basketball game — Michigan State easily beat an outmatched Binghamton — suddenly imbued with emotion. Winston and his head coach, Tom Izzo, fought back tears during a moment of silence. Big Ten Network’s cameras captured Cassius and his youngest brother, Khy (a teammate of Zachary’s at Division III Albion), embracing courtside before the game.
I’m not here to tell you that basketball helped heal a hurting soul last night. Or even that Cassius Winston and his family were buoyed by the love and support of the Michigan State team and fans. I can’t fathom what they’re going through or how they’re feeling. A 19-year old apparently choosing to end his own life leaves behind questions that will forever be unanswered. It stirs pain that none of us could come close to comprehending. Thinking about that level of grief absolutely crushes me.
Yet I certainly saw the way that the game helped Cassius, probably the best point guard in college basketball, find his way. If only for a few moments. Going through the routines, hearing the thud of basketballs and the screech of fresh Nikes cutting on hardwood … I’m guessing that brought him about as close to his brother as he could get.
Steve Kerr played basketball after his father, Malcolm, was assassinated by a terrorist in Lebanon. I spoke to some of his teammates about the night they were awakened by the news, and they all recalled how chaotic it felt. Kerr was a freshman at Arizona then, sitting in his dorm room, with players and coaches coming and going. It was, in fact, eerily calm in so many ways — except that nobody felt normal about anything. Until they got on the court again.
When I got word earlier this year that my father had died, after a life wracked by alcoholism and mental illness, I was throwing ground balls to a line of rambunctious 5- and 6-year olds on a small field tucked behind an elementary school. They mostly played in the dirt, or chased each other, as I exhorted them to get their gloves down. To step and throw. To get to the back of the line and cheer on your teammate.
A call came to my phone and I stepped away to hear the news. I couldn’t think of what to do next, so I returned to what I’d been doing. My father and I weren’t particularly close but he would, when I inevitably begged on most afternoons, have a catch. He would tell me to get my glove all the way down, to point my toe where I wanted the ball to go, to calm down and not rush. Those words filled my head, and I did my best to share them.
That was peace. Fleeting, but meaningful. I hope Winston can find it, too, in the days, weeks and months ahead.
The Ravens have the Texans and Rams to get through before hosting San Francisco on Dec. 1, but it’s hard not to look ahead to that game. The Niners defense, according to Football Outsiders’ DVOA, is in a stratosphere along with the Patriots far above the rest of the league (New England is at -33.9, San Fran is at -31.4 and the Broncos, Rams and Steelers are next at …. -8.8.) Should be fun.
Quick hits: Do the Dak! … Enough Don Cherry … Denny Hamlin gets another shot … A Michael Jordan gambling and drinking story
—Penny Hardaway doesn’t need college basketball … which is why he might be the biggest threat to college basketball. Memphis’ decision to defy the NCAA and go to court could change everything.
