Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
The Ravens quarterback seems poised to win his third NFL MVP with how he’s playing this season.
Lamar Jackson is playing some of the best football of his career right now.
At first blush that statement might seem outlandish. After all, we are talking about a quarterback coming off his second MVP season, which he won a year ago when he secured 49 out of 50 first-place votes. That fell one first-place vote shy of making Jackson one of the rare “unanimous” MVP winners, a feat he did manage to accomplish back in 2019.
But the film, and the stats, show that right now the version of Jackson we are seeing is even better than previous versions.
At the moment Jackson leads the NFL with an Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt of 9.48, well ahead of Josh Allen who sits second with a mark of 8.42. He leads the NFL with an Adjusted Yards per Attempt of 10.20, the only quarterback in double digits in that category. He has thrown for 15 touchdown passes, against just a pair of interceptions.
He is doing this while posting the third-highest Expected Points Added per Play among quarterbacks (behind only Allen and rookie Jayden Daniels), and while posting a Completion Percentage Over Expected of 4.0.
When you chart those “quarterback efficiency” metrics, as is done each week at RBSDM, you get results like this, putting Jackson at the top of the charts:
He is also doing this while adding another 455 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the ground.
Jackson is coming off a dynamic night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a game the Baltimore Ravens won by a final score of 41-31. Jackson completed 17-of-22 passes for 281 yards and five touchdowns, while adding another 55 rushing yards on nine carries.
But beyond the numbers, is how Jackson is putting them up. His long quest to become a pure pocket passer dates back to his freshman year at Louisville, something we have discussed before on these pages here at SB Nation. At the close of his freshman year at Louisville, Jackson walked into Bobby Petrino’s office and told his coach he wanted to become what the young QB termed a “real quarterback.”
That process has seen peaks and valleys, and Jackson has shouldered his fair share of criticism along the way, but the quarterback we are seeing right now, and we saw last night in Tampa Bay, might be the best version of that quarterback yet.
Take this touchdown pass from Monday night, to Rashod Bateman, and pay particular attention to his eyes.
Did you see how Jackson uses his eyes to influence Antoine Winfield Jr. downhill towards the dig route from Nelson Agholor, before throwing the vertical route to Bateman? Jackson’s eyes create the throwing window, bringing the safety downhill from depth, and opening up the space for Bateman’s vertical route.
This is high-level quarterback play from the pocket.
Then there is this touchdown to Derrick Henry, on a mesh concept in the red area. Again, look at Jackson’s eyes on this:
Jackson knows the route concept, and after the snap sees the traffic created in the middle of the field. Seeing that traffic, he knows that Henry is going to be wide open in the right flat, as the man coverage scheme from Tampa Bay has more bodies in the middle of the field, and none tracking Henry.
But Jackson waits until the last possible second to flash his eyes towards the right and make a throw. That delay with his eyes prevents defenders from breaking to the outside, which gives Henry the best chance possible to make the catch and get into the end zone.
Of course, Jackson is making plays like that from the pocket, while still doing things like this to create magic out of near-disaster moments:
Certainly there is a long way to go in the 2024 NFL season, and things can change.
But right now Jackson, a two-time MVP and one of only two players — the other being Tom Brady — to win the award unanimously, is playing the best football of his career.
That should terrify the rest of the NFL.
