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Baltimore Ravens' One Big Question: Can Lamar Jackson Finally Transcend Postseason Demons?
Baltimore Ravens' One Big Question: Can Lamar Jackson Finally Transcend Postseason Demons? originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
In this offseason series, Athlon Sports' Doug Farrar asks the One Big Question for all 32 NFL teams — the primary discussion point that will measure ultimate success (or not) for every franchise. We begin our AFC North discussion with the Baltimore Ravens, who have the second-most regular-season wins (78, behind only the Kansas City Chiefs' 90) since Lamar Jackson's NFL career began in 2018. So, why has Jackson's postseason tenure been so problematic, and is that about more than just his own failures?
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Lamar Jackson is a two-time NFL Most Valuable Player (2019 and 2023), he had my regular-season vote for 2024, and he is unquestionably one of the game's great players, regardless of position. Jackson is still an amazing runner — he's the only quarterback ever to run for more than 1,000 yards in two separate regular seasons (2019 and 2020), and if you count postseasons, he ran the ball 160 times for 1,035 yards last season.
And as a pure quarterback, Jackson has also managed to bust most of the myths that have surrounded him since he came out of Louisville and was the 32nd player selected in the 2018 draft — a hilarious miss by most non-Baltimore Ravens teams that year — in that he's become so much more than the "future receiver" projected by Big Brains like Bill Polian. Jackson has been a great thrower from the pocket for years, despite repeated insistences to the contrary from a lot of analysts, and that continued into the 2024 season.
Last season from the pocket, Jackson completed 305 of 435 passes for 3,708 yards, 1,786 air yards, 34 touchdowns, five interceptions, and a passer rating of 117.3 that was by far the NFL's highest among quarterbacks with at least 100 attempts from the pocket — Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles ranked second at 112.0.
Basically, there isn't anything that Lamar Jackson can't do as a quarterback... with one notable exception. And yes, it's the one that Jackson and every Ravens executive, coach, player, and fan is sick of hearing:
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To paraphrase Billy Beane, why doesn't Jackson's [expletive] work in the playoffs?
We could go chapter and verse on the stats, but let's make it simple. Among quarterbacks who have been in the NFL every season from 2018 through 2024, only Patrick Mahomes (102.3 and 7.52) has a higher passer rating and Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (Pro Football Reference's primary metric for quarterback efficiency) than Jackson's 102.0 and 7.26.
But that's in the regular season.
In the postseason from 2018 through 2024, Jackson ranks 20th in passer rating (84.6), and 18th in ANY/A (5.39) among quarterbacks with at least 100 postseason attempts. So, this is more than the mirage were were given regarding Jackson as a non-NFL quarterback. Jackson's overall postseason stats — 146 completions in 241 attempts for 1,753 yards, 10 touchdowns, and seven interceptions — tell the story as much as anything, and it's not as if things have gotten much better over the years.
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In last season's 28-14 wild-card win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, Jackson completed 16 of 21 passes for 175 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 132.0. Jackson made a handful of explosive play throws both in and out of the pocket, but for the most part, he was a drive-extender against a very good defense, and the idea was to let his own Ravens defense and Derrick Henry lead the way.
Jackson was almost more valuable as a runner in that game, with 81 yards on 15 rushing attempts, as the Ravens and offensive coordinator Todd Monken read-optioned Pittsburgh's defense to death.
And then, there was the divisional game against the Buffalo Bills. Back in Week 4, the Ravens rick-rolled Buffalo to the tune of a 35-10 blastoff in which Henry ran the ball 24 times for 199 yards and a touchdown, and Jackson played off that brilliantly, exploiting the Bills' messy mesh point defense for 64 yards and a touchdown of his own on six carries.
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In the rematch — a 27-25 win in Buffalo's favor — Monken called a completely different game for whatever reason against a defense that played more three-linebacker sets than usual, because it had been terrible against the kinds of stuff Jackson had demolished it with in Week 4. When facing quarterback keeps, draws, scrambles, or running back runs off read-option plays coming into that game, the Bills allowed 254 yards and two touchdowns on 34 carries. That's 7.5 yards per carry, third-worst in the NFL, a 55.9% first-down percentage (fourth-worst in the NFL), and a +0.55 EPA per attempt (fourth-worst in the league).
And yet, there were just four read-option runs in the playoff game, and Jackson didn't keep the ball on... well, any of them.
The Ravens, who knew full well that their best opportunity to get to and won a Super Bowl was to combine the best of Lamar Jackson as a runner and as a passer, failed to do that when it mattered most. One could argue, following Baltimore's 17-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 AFC Championship game, that it was the second straight season in which Monken failed to realize the quarterback he had when he really needed to. In that game, Jackson was asked to throw the ball 37 times, and there were just 16 rushing attempts for the Ravens, with Jackson getting eight of them for 54 yards.
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In the Bills loss, Jackson took the responsibility off the shoulders of tight end Mark Andrews, who fumbled the ball late in the fourth quarter, and dropped a two-point conversion that would have tied the game with 1:33 remaining.
'We're a team," Jackson said. "In the first half, I had two costly turnovers. Me not holding the safety, me just knowing the coverage and knowing it was man [coverage], I threw a B.S. interception. It was 7-7 at the time. I believe they scored after that. We battled back, fumbled the snap trying to make something happen. It was like an RPO play, so I couldn't really throw the ball to [tight end Isaiah] Likely [because] the offensive line was down the field, so I tried to make something happen, tried to squeeze the ball. It slipped out of my hand, [and the Bills] picked it up, got some yards that I think led to points for them, so it's a team effort out there.
"[Mark Andrews has] been busting his behind. He's been making plays out on that field for us. [We] came up short, and like I've been saying all season, every time we're in situations like this, turnovers play a factor. Penalties play a factor. Tonight, the turnovers... We can't have that [expletive]. That's why we lost the game, because as you can see, we're moving the ball wonderfully. It's just hold onto the [expletive] ball. I'm sorry for my language. I'm just tired of this.'
Everybody in the organization will be tired of it until it changes, and here, it all starts with Monken. Why he has been so eager to change the plan when everybody knows what works, and nobody is still able to consistently stop it, but that needs to become a thing of the past.
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Letting Lamar be Lamar, as opposed to trying to outsmart an opponent on the biggest possible stage, would be an excellent way to help the Ravens' most important player on their way to what they hope will be a Super Bowl journey in the 2025 season — and mercifully, an end to all that (legitimate) talk about Jackson's postseason legacy.
(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise specified).
Related: Buffalo Bills' One Big Question: Can This Franchise Finally Find the Super Bowl?
Related: Miami Dolphins' One Big Question: Is Tua Tagovailoa a Franchise Quarterback?
Related: New York Jets' One Big Question: Can Justin Fields Become the Quarterback They Need?
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 3, 2025, where it first appeared.
