Tag: Michael Vick

Lamar Jackson is the NFL’s best quarterback in 2019

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson’s arm and legs combine to make him the most efficient and effective quarterback in the NFL.

Entering Week 12, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was already the frontrunner for the NFL’s MVP award. Though he didn’t need to prove himself further as one of the best quarterbacks in the league, Jackson did exactly that against the Los Angeles Rams and their vaunted defense.

He ran around them with his legs and was just shy of perfect through the air en route to a 45-6 dominant victory that saw him relieved by backup Robert Griffin III in the fourth quarter. Jackson finished the game, going 15-of-20 for 169 passing yards, with five touchdown passes, no interceptions and a 139.4 passer rating. He added another 95 rushing yards on eight attempts just for good measure.

With yet another amazing game, Jackson has proven himself to be the best overall quarterback in the league.

Each and every week we hear how Jackson is going to get figured out or excuses for why someone isn’t a complete believer yet. Whether it’s people saying to throw out extra defensive backs to contain him in the pocket or to load up the box to force him to throw under duress, no defense has really figured out how to stop Jackson, and it’s not for a lack of trying or talent.

Against the New England Patriots’ top-ranked defense, Jackson torched them for 224 total yards and three total touchdowns (rushing and passing) in a 37-20 rout. Against the Texans’ solid defense, Jackson had a combined 301 yards and four touchdown passes, knocking Houston’s rankings down a few pegs. Against the Rams’ 11th-ranked defense, Jackson threw five touchdowns and nearly had 100 yards on the ground in spite of playing just three quarters of football.

Yet, we’re likely going to hear about how Jackson and the Ravens need to beat the San Francisco 49ers in dominant fashion for people to truly believe. And when asked why someone isn’t fully on the Jackson-train, it’s his passing yardage that gets called into question.

Passing yards are far too often used as the biggest metric to determine a quarterback’s worth in the NFL and by some of the most notorious of pundits. With Jackson on pace to barely crack 3,500 passing yards this season, it’s far too easy to dismiss what he’s done in 2019. Yet, it’s the efficiency at which Jackson has struck that should really impress.

Jackson’s TD:INT ratio is nearly 5:1 right now. He’s tied with Russell Wilson for the most touchdown passes in the league but Jackson has the highest TD% among quarterbacks with more than 13 attempts. He hasn’t thrown an interception since Week 5, though he now has two games with five touchdown passes this season. He has two games with a perfect 158.3 passer rating this season — something just two other quarterbacks have ever done before (Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger). He’s tied for the third-highest passer rating in the NFL.

That right there is already enough evidence to at least put Jackson in the discussion as the best quarterback in the league. But he’s so much more than just his arm, even if Jackson really wants people to assess him as a passer first and foremost.

Jackson currently has 876 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns on 124 carries this season. He’s ranked ninth in the NFL in rushing yards, tied for 11th in rushing touchdowns and his 7.1 yard-per-carry average is first by a wide margin (1.3 yards-per-carry over second place). Jackson is on pace to not just beat Michael Vick’s single-season rushing record but blow it completely out of the water.

There’s not another quarterback like Jackson in this league and that’s often the problem when trying to compare and rank him. The name we most often seen thrown around is Vick for obvious reasons. But even taking the best separate passing and rushing seasons from Vick’s career and combining them wouldn’t match what Jackson’s on pace to do this year.

Like it or not, we can’t look at Jackson and measure him by the same exact metrics as the rest of the league’s quarterbacks. We have to combine his rushing and passing totals and where they rank to get even the slightest insight on how impressive Jackson actually is. When doing that, it’s crystal clear that Jackson is the NFL’s best quarterback at this point.

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Michael Vick on Carson Wentz: “He will fail in Philadelphia” trying to live up to Nick Foles

Michael Vick thinks Carson Wentz will fail in Philadelphia

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Philadelphia can be an unforgiving sports town and Carson Wentz is all the rage after his disappointing outing against the Seattle Seahawks in which he accounted for four turnovers and missed several easy throws in the process and seemed to be pressing all afternoon.

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Wentz has been without his full arsenal of offensive weapons and his game has suffered without DeSean Jackson or Alshon Jeffery for long periods of time. Wentz is already taking heat from the local media and now one former Eagles star believes he’s destined to fail in the City of Brotherly Love.

While a guest on FS1’s Speak For Yourself, Vick was asked if Wentz would fail in Philadelphia, and his response is likely to once again divide the fan base.

Vick on Wentz:

“He will fail in Philadelphia.” “I think the bar has been set so high by Nick Foles, who won the Super Bowl and now a ceiling has been set.”

Vick went on to allude to anonymous reports questioning Wentz’s character and leadership skills over the past two seasons as well.

Vick believes that Wentz is fighting an uphill battle trying to impress teammates, the fans and the city, all while trying to win games and that illustrious Super Bowl that Foles was able to bring home.

Michael Vick responds to Jalen Ramsey’s question on defending Lamar Jackson

Jalen Ramsey asked Michael Vick how he would stop Lamar Jackson, and he doesn’t know what he would do.

When the Los Angeles Rams take the field on defense Monday night, they’ll have one of the most dynamic playmakers in the league staring them down. Lamar Jackson has been the best player in the league this season, as declared by the Rams themselves, and has looked particularly unstoppable in the last four games.

He’s not your typical quarterback to defend, and devising a game plan to stop him is a great challenge. Jalen Ramsey resorted to asking a quarterback who played similarly to the way Jackson does, requesting some help from Michael Vick.

Vick was in attendance for the Rams’ win over the Bears on Sunday night, and in Ramsey’s caption on Instagram, he asked the former Falcons star for assistance.

Vick actually responded to Ramsey’s request, saying he’s not sure how he would defend Jackson, either. He called Jackson the 2019 version of himself, which is essentially the same thing Wade Phillips said on Thursday.

“Tough question bruh… see the reality is this… Lamar is Mike Vick 2019, but with an offense built around his skill, which makes it hard to say. I wouldn’t know what to do against a guy kinda like myself. 😂 #giveiteverytingyougot”

The Rams will have their hands full with Jackson and the Ravens offense, which is averaging 39 points per game in the last four weeks.

Wade Phillips calls Lamar Jackson ‘this era’s Michael Vick’

Wade Phillips wasn’t afraid to compare Lamar Jackson to Michael Vick.

During his heyday with the Atlanta Falcons, Michael Vick gave opposing defensive coordinators and head coaches headaches as they tried to devise a plan to contain him. He was as electric as any player to play the quarterback position, bringing a terrifying combination of speed and arm strength to the field.

There hasn’t been a player quite like him since, but Lamar Jackson is staking his claim as the next version of Vick.

Ahead of Monday night’s matchup with the Ravens, Jalen Ramsey likened Jackson to Vick on Instagram this week, and Wade Phillips didn’t disagree with the comparison. Phillips was asked how the two quarterbacks are similar, and he seems to believe Jackson has a slight edge.

“Pretty similar in a lot of ways. Both of them are great runners. Mike was similar in that he didn’t throw many interceptions and he had that flick of the wrist that he could throw the ball downfield. But Lamar is this era’s Michael Vick, maybe plus – Michael Vick-plus.”

That’s some high praise for a coach who was around Vick for several seasons. Phillips was the Falcons’ defensive coordinator in 2002 and interim head coach in 2003 when Vick was there, so he knows a lot about what it was like trying to stop No. 7.

Vick rushed for 777 yards in 2002 en route to a Pro Bowl selection, emerging as one of the most dangerous quarterbacks in all of football in just his second season.

Jackson is not only on his way to the Pro Bowl in Year 2, as well, but he’s also the front runner to be named NFL MVP. In Phillips’ mind, Jackson is clearly the best player in the league through 11 weeks.

“Lamar Jackson, everyone’s saying it and rightfully so, he’s certainly the MVP so far this year and is having a great year,” he said.

The Rams will get their first taste of Jackson next week when the Ravens visit on Monday night, and Phillips isn’t necessarily excited about facing that offense.

“Gives me a headache,” Phillips joked. “But it’s a great challenge. It’s something that competitors – and I think our guys are – it’s something for them to step up and play well against, and that’s what our challenge is.

“If I didn’t already, they’d give me white hair playing against teams like this. But I’m already there.”

Watch: Younghoe Koo talks about debut, wearing Vick’s jersey number

Week 10 was a bit of an adjustment for Falcons fans. Not only did the team play uncharacteristically well, there was another player wearing former QB Michael Vick’s infamous No. 7 jersey.

Week 10 was a bit of an adjustment for Falcons fans. Not only did the team play uncharacteristically well, there was another player wearing former QB Michael Vick’s infamous No. 7 jersey.

That player was kicker Younghoe Koo, whose 6-for-6 debut against the Saints earned him NFC Special Teams Player of the Week.

Koo was asked about winning the award, and just how bizarre it is to be wearing Vick’s former number. Watch what he had to say below, as tweeted by ESPN’s Vaughn McClure:

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MythBusters: Yes, Lamar Jackson is a pocket passer

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.”