BY ADAM GREENE<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is almost impossible to put the regular season Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson had in 2019 into perspective. The stat line alone had to win pretty much every fantasy league on the planet. If you had Jackson and Christian McCaffrey on your fantasy football team, you probably lapped everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here were his final numbers; 66.1 completion percentage, 3,127 yards, 36 touchdown passes (which led the NFL), just six interceptions, 1,206 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns. There\u2019s a reason he\u2019s on the cover of this year\u2019s Madden 21 video game because those are simply arcade numbers. No one has done anything like it before and maybe never will again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along the way he led the Baltimore Ravens to a 14-2 regular season record, home field advantage in the playoffs and picked up a unanimous MVP award in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s the problem; he was one-and-done in the playoffs. Again. Those outrageous regular season numbers meant absolutely nothing in the postseason. The Ravens lost 28-12 to a significant underdog, the 9-7 Tennessee Titans. They did it at home and after halftime the outcome of the game was never in doubt. Jackson put up decent numbers, throwing for 365 yards and a TD and rushing for 143 while tossing two picks, but much of that was in garbage time, once the Titans were already up 28-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the thing is, this has kind of always been Jackson\u2019s deal. In college, he put up pinball numbers for Louisville as well and claimed a Heisman Trophy in 2016. Against To 25 competition? He was 1-8 in a three-year career. He was 1-2 in Bowl Games, with the lone victory coming his freshman year over an unranked Texas A&M team quarterbacked by Kyle Allen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the big games that counted, Jackson did not show up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be fair, that didn\u2019t happen the NFL this past season until the playoffs. One of their two losses was to the Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs, forgivable at any point. Along the way they knocked off the Seattle Seahawks, New England Patriots, Houston Texans, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills, all teams that finished with winning records and all but one of them a playoff team. Certainly those were big games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the NFL is different than college football. The psychological impact of a loss is smaller. A college football season can be all but ruined with an early season loss to an inferior team. The Ravens could get blown out by the Cleveland Browns, 40-25 (and they were) and it not make a difference at all in their overall season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the playoffs are win and advance, lose and go home. And in two tries in consecutive seasons, Jackson barely got off the team bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, here\u2019s the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6. Can Lamar Jackson continue to play at an MVP level and do it in the postseason?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Because that\u2019s what will not only determine if Baltimore will return to the playoffs, but how far they\u2019ll go. Good defensive coaches have now shut down their offense. That game film is out there and, make no mistake, defensive coordinators are studying it hard. They\u2019ve literally had nothing else to do while stuck at home in a pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It happens to every offense, every innovation or playing style. It\u2019s what cost the Rams and Sean McVay a chance to return to the playoffs last season more than anything. Defenses caught up to what they were doing. They had to adapt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can Jackson and the Ravens adapt? Can they move forward from what worked last year in the regular season that most certainly won\u2019t work again in this one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019ll be tough and I think it\u2019ll be a struggle all year. Every game will be a big game with Jackson counted on to carry more of the load. And that might seem ridiculous when you look at the numbers he put up last season, but the Ravens blew out plenty of teams. Nine of their 14 wins were by two touchdowns or more. It\u2019s easy to play loose when you\u2019re that far ahead. It won\u2019t be like that in 2020-21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow our BetOnline Twitter account<\/a> for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY ADAM GREENE It is almost impossible to put the regular season Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson had in 2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":12682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12683,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12678\/revisions\/12683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}