Since his childhood, Lamar Jackson has pursued his goal of one day becoming a starting quarterback in the NFL. Despite outstanding achievements in high school and college, the skeptics remained – to this day. But at the Baltimore Ravens, the rookie is closer to his dream than ever before. The game against the Kansas City Chiefs could be his final breakthrough.
If the Chiefs receive the Ravens on Sunday evening (7 pm), then in this game – similar to the night between the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Rams – two worlds meet.
Probably the best offense of the NFL against perhaps the best defense. No matter which statistic you want to look at, KC on one side and Baltimore on the other are always at the top. Points per game? Number one against number one. Yards per play? Number one against number one. Yards a game? Number three against number one. Touchdowns per game? Number one against number two. DVOA? Number one against number four.
The meeting of these two elite units is also eagerly awaited beyond the two fan camps. The Arrowhead Stadium promises to once again become a place of spectacle on Sunday. And yet the other side of the game, the offense of the ravens against the defense of the chiefs, offers almost as much excitement.
The reason: Lamar Jackson.
The 21-year-old is a source of enthusiasm – now also at the NFL level. Jackson was one of the greatest college stars of this millennium, his exceptional playing style combined with his athletic abilities have rarely been seen before. In his first three starts in the NFL he already broke numerous records (together with Running Back Gus Edwards and the entire Ravens-Offense) and won as many victories (three) as all those quarterbacks who had been preferred to him in April could celebrate in significantly more starts so far.
Jackson did not play flawlessly. In the three games so far he has as many interceptions as touchdowns on his account, and he already has five fumbles. With the Bengals, Raiders and Falcons, he also caught three opponents at the start who a quarterback could hardly have chosen better.
And yet the ex-Heisman winner should already have achieved at least one goal: Jackson is considered a quarterback. At least for now. It is a goal for which the youngster had to fight for many years.
Jackson’s father died when he was a kid. Lamar was raised by his mother alone – and she was the one who brought her son to football. Early on, Felicia Jones recognized the huge athletic potential slumbering in her offspring. She personally trained Jackson and his brother almost every day in the garden in front of the apartment – Lamar was eight when he was supposed to dodge his adult mother in Tackling Drills.
She also organized coach Wan Warren for Jackson. The condition for Warren: Lamar should learn to throw the ball, not catch it. The vision was clear: Jackson is a quarterback.
“All the stories are true,” Warren told ESPN. “She played mom, dad and coach at the same time before she really knew what she was doing. She was the first one to catch balls with him. And if it was tackling and Mum had to tackle, then she just tackled.”
Since Jackson was eight years old, training was on the program six days a week, only on Saturdays the boy got a break. Whether it’s appropriate promotion or exaggerated drill, in retrospect the hard training has paid off for Jackson. “His low center of gravity is his great strength,” says Rick Swain, Jackson’s high school coach. “He’s so hard to bring to the ground because he’s had such a great balance since childhood. That should be the secret to his success.”
Swain coached at Boynton Beach Highschool and was enthusiastic about the young Jackson from the first second on. The coach, who for years had relied on a shotgun open with narrow formations, redesigned his entire scheme: To take full advantage of Jackson’s athletic abilities, Boyton Beach suddenly ran a spread opener out of the pistol.
Swain was so fascinated by the abilities of his protégé that he wanted to use this unbelievably fast and tall boy for long passing downs in the defense. The idea lived until Jackson’s mother got wind of it. “Coach, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea,” Jones Swain reminded us impressively.
Your message to the coach: Jackson is a quarterback. And nothing else.
Even in high school, Jackson’s personal training didn’t end at home. It got harder instead. When his teammates accompanied him to one of his family workouts on a Sunday, it ended up unpleasant for many: Some had to vomit, some stopped training prematurely, Jackson’s then teammate Trequan Smith remembers. Jackson’s mother, who kept on training with her, stuck to her mantra: “I won’t ask anything of you that I can’t do myself.”
When Jackson was faced with the choice of college, Jones was just as tough. Only when Louisville’s Head Coach Bobby visited Petrino Jackson personally and assured him and his mother that the youngster would be used exclusively as quarterback, was there a promise.
When the Cardinals looked for a new punt returner a few months later after problems in the special teams and wanted to try out their most athletic player in this role, this idea was buried faster than it could arise: Just minutes after the first training session in which Jackson had caught a punt, Petrino had a receiver on his ear from which the voice of Jackson’s mother resounded. Felicia Jones reminded the coach of his promise: Jackson’s a quarterback.
Some may find the refusals of Jackson and his mother exaggerated. But given this vehemence and Jackson’s undeniable success at college, it’s hard to believe that Jackson’s position at the beginning of the year was still a question mark for much of the public.
In his two years as a starter for the Cardinals, the 21-year-old had thrown for more than 7,000 yards and 57 touchdowns, had run for more than 3,500 yards and 39 touchdowns, had won the Heisman Trophy for the best college player and had once been a Heisman finalist – and yet experts like ESPN’s Bill Polian compared him to players like Antonio Brown and Julio Jones before the draft.
“When people came around the corner with this wide-receiver thing, I just thought, ‘I have to show these people that I’m a quarterback,'” Jackson explained. The result: The probably most athletic player of the entire draft class tried to distract from his athleticism in the run-up to the draft. That’s not how Jackson ran a 40-yard sprint. Neither at the NFL-Combine, nor at his Pro Day.
Numerous teams also apparently had problems contacting Jackson’s mother, who acts as a manager for her son. Rumours have it that these were teams who wanted to try Jackson in other positions like wide receiver or even running back. Does this representation really apply? Questionable. But it’s the narrative Jones and her son have been following for years: Jackson is a quarterback.
Also in Baltimore Jackson was used sporadically as quarterback. In the training camp and in the pre-season, the 21-year-old was used exclusively as a signal caller. With Joe Flacco as a starter, Jackson remained only a quarterback-running back-wide-receiver hybrid until his hip injury on match days.
But for three weeks now, Jackson has been, more necessarily than actively selected, Baltimore’s starting quarterback. And no matter how rosy the rookie’s circumstances at the time may have been, the positive aspects of the radically altered and Jackson-style philosophy of the Ravens cannot be denied.
In all three matches, Head Coach John Harbaugh’s team recorded more than 200 rushing yards, with the Ravens standing at 716 yards for just three weeks. With Flacco under Center it wasn’t much more in the first nine games of the season with 834 Rushing Yards.
Through the Running Game, Jackson and the Ravens can also brutally control the clock. Against the Bengals, Baltimore had more than 34 of the 60 minutes of ball possession, against the Raiders more than 38 minutes and against the Falcons almost 40 minutes, including more than 24 minutes in the second half.
“It is clear that the offense has helped us. The time we had the ball kept us fit and fresh,” explains Safety Eric Weddle. “I told the guys at the end of the game, ‘We’ve been sitting around for 15 minutes, so we’re gonna win this thing too!'”
“It’s true that the best defense is good offense, whether you score many points or control the clock,” Harbaugh believes. “The fact that our defense plays so few plays that the players are fresh and can hunt their opponents makes a big difference.”
With the Chiefs a new caliber awaits Jackson and the Ravens on Sunday – Harbaugh knows that too. Can this offense with Jackson under Center, which runs contrary to the general trend of the NFL, also exist then?
“It’s an unconventional offense. An offense that I don’t think any of us really know what it can achieve,” Harbaugh is also eager to see. Anything seems possible for Baltimore in the coming weeks, much is uncertain.
Only one thing seems clearer than ever: Jackson’s a quarterback.