The NFL is Lamar Jackson’s world, and everybody else is just paying rent

Lamar Jackson is dissecting the NFL in ways we’ve never before. The tape doesn’t lie — in this case, it screams.

At the end of the 2019 NFL season, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson became the second player to win the league’s Most Valuable Player award unanimously, joining Tom Brady, who did it after the 2010 season.

“Make those people eat their words,” Jackson said at that time, a sentiment clearly directed at those who thought he should become a receiver and whatnot. “It feels good when you can make those people eat their words because they’re so negative. How are you going to wake up and be so negative about somebody who’s not negative toward you or don’t do anything wrong? Don’t worry about what they say. Do you.”

Jackson has been “doing him” ever since. He developed exponentially as a pocket passer, though pundits were slow on the uptake. Jackson regressed a bit there last year, but between left tackle Ronnie Stanley’s injuries and right tackle Orlando Brown’s defection to Kansas City last season… well, it’s tough to be a pocket passer when you have no pocket. Defenses blitzed Jackson at the NFL’s highest rate in 2021, and the more defenders came after him, the more his performance suffered.

Whatever his previous travails, Jackson has come out of the gate in 2022 at an entirely different level. I did a bit of research after Jackson ate the Patriots’ collective lunch in a 37-26 Ravens win, and the numbers are… astonishing.

But wait — there’s more!

Based on the stats and the tape, the 2022 version of Lamar Jackson is the version the believers always dreamed could happen, and the naysayers never wanted to accept was possible. You can throw whatever “fluke” talk attached to his name out the window with the velocity and efficiency of one of Jackson’s 40-yard wrist-flicks.

“No, I’m kind of getting used to it,” Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said after the Patriots win, when asked if anything Jackson does surprises him anymore. “It’s a good thing. But you never do get used to it because he plays his way, and he’s kind of determined to play his way, but he plays — it’s not — his way is winning football. It’s fundamentally sound quarterback play. He’s running the show out there. He’s making the checks. He’s managing the clock. All the things that you would say an operator or a manager does, he’s doing all those things, too. He’s doing those things, and he’s making plays sometimes when the play doesn’t make itself. And the receivers have such confidence.

“You’ve got to give those guys credit. They keep running routes, they keep getting open. The offensive line, to continue to pass protect when Lamar is holding the ball the way he does and moves around the pocket not have holding calls – that’s great technique. That’s great discipline by those guys. [offensive line coach] Joe [D’Alessandris] does a great job with those guys, too.”

So, it’s all come together for the 2-1 Ravens, who are only 2-1 because Jackson was out-dueled in Week 2 by Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins, who were able to exploit Baltimore coverage busts that Jackson was not.

Beyond the record, here’s why Lamar Jackson has been the NFL’s best player in the young season by an almost fictional margin.