Lamar Jackson - Popular Opinion

[NewEra]

If Lamar could’ve found a way to beat the Raiders or the Browns we would’ve had to play against Zay Flowers too.  But he couldn’t- so his best playmaker had to play week 18 and got injured.  Sucks for them.  Beat the bad teams next time

[Sweats]

Listen, i like Lamar, i just don't like the media narrative surrounding him and the Ravens......... and that's the biggest gripe that i have about that.

 

 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

I think Lamar is overrated in the sense that he’s not on the level of the big 3 (Allen, Burrow, Mahomes.) He is right on the fringes though and well worth the money they paid him which was very controversial at the time. I don’t think he will be playing at a high level into his mid-late 30s like the current top guys. He’s just too overly reliant on his athleticism. Allen can run it with the best of them and it certainly opens things up, but he’s more reliant on power than pure speed, and he can do things w his arm that no one else can. His athleticism was a complete afterthought during the draft process. Lamar needs an offense tailored to his skill set whereas Allen will thrive in pretty much any system. I am 100% positive all 32 GMs would take Josh over Lamar 

[tigerthelion]

9 hours ago, VW82 said:

 

I don't know about unanimous MVP but Josh probably should've been MVP. 

 

Of course the turnovers are part of it. But to the same point that Bills didn't win games in 2023 despite Josh's turnovers, the Ravens didn't lose or wouldn't have won or whatever despite Lamar's turnovers. At some point, a guy makes enough briliant plays over the course of a game that he renders said turnovers to be a minor point in consideration of his overall brilliance. No one should understand that better than Bills fans!

I tend to agree with your overall ideas here.  I think the media in general goes a little overboard with turnovers, and a QB can overcome them if he puts touchdowns on the board.   

 

I can't say Lamar outplayed Allen, but maybe Allen didn't outplay Lamar by that much either.  The turnovers were a big part of the game, though.  If Lamar didn't dig his team a hole in the first half, he wouldn't have had to scramble to claw them back in the second half.   I feel that if the Bills were down, we would have obviously seen a different plan of attack from Allen on offense.  It was clear that the Bills were trying to run clock and control the ball in the second half, at least to my eyes.  They did not want Josh taking any chances.  If Buffalo was down by 14 points, I am pretty sure Josh airs it out with more passes at the line of scrimmage.  Maybe he throws a few touchdowns, maybe he has a pick or two. We will never know.  We can only go by what we know, and what happened.  The Bills took a page out of the Chiefs playbook and won ugly.  

Edited Tuesday at 01:40 PM by tigerthelion

[PrimeTime101]

On 1/21/2025 at 12:48 AM, ticketssince61 said:

 

 To give him the benefit of a doubt, it could be that (in a positive sense) it is always "WE"  - as in "we the team" whether win or lose

 

 

nah i call that back yard BS..  you commit a penalty.. you yell and scream then its "on me" "lets get this back" You make game costly penalties its on ME.. I need to get better.. then.. we can get better as a team moving forward.

 

I can not ever see in any given scenario where JA has Int's and a fumble and does not say "I cant make those mistakes.. that was on me"   JA Always owns up. Lamar does not.. sorry.. lol much respect. we can live to agree to disagree on this one yes? lol 

[zow2]

I think Lamar is scarier to play against than Patty.  It's just rare to hem Lamar in the pocket and sack him like a traditional QB.  He runs with ease, throws well on the run, etc..   Hamlin did one helluva job on that one play where he lost possession and then the other sack that forced the Ravens into a FG.  Those were game changing.

 

Mahomes is smarter..  just all around smarter and at the end of games, more clutch.

 

 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

On 1/21/2025 at 7:40 AM, Sweats said:

Listen, i like Lamar, i just don't like the media narrative surrounding him and the Ravens......... and that's the biggest gripe that i have about that.

 

 

That’s the worst part…I love the dude but hate how some people talk about the dude making people think I don’t love the dude 😂

[CNYfan]

Lamar improved quite a bit this year.   I do believe he is in the top tier and that he is throwing the ball very well.   Derrick Henry and the new OC have been a great assistance in Lamar's improved play.  

[Mikey152]

Lamar is an extreme, and because of that there are a wide variety of opinions. Most people will agree he is a great football player, but I think where you get a lot of differing opinions is when you start talking about him as a quarterback.

 

Lamar is not a great thrower of the football by NFL standards. He just isn't. On top of that, he doesn't throw a lot of timing/anticipation passes. Despite that, he had CRAZY passing stats this season because he and Derrick Henry are possibly the best running attack in the history of the NFL, and easily the best this season in a time where most defenses are geared to stop the pass. This leads to lots of heavy boxes and tired defenders, and also leads to teams being afraid to play man and let him scramble all over them. So, a lot of his relative weaknesses don't really get exposed because his strengths prevent teams from exploiting them (most of the time).

 

In the playoffs, it doesn't work as well. Defenses can slow down the run without being complete sieves in the passing game. If they can force him to be even sort of a traditional QB, he gets exposed. It isn't easy, and he is improving from bad to below average as a passer, but he's just never gonna be a great QB in the traditional sense.

 

We will never know if that actually matters, but it is a great experiment. I feel like Jayden Daniels is an even better version, and one day someone will come along who can truly do it all and be unstoppable.

Edited 20 hours ago by Mikey152

[WillSaints81]

On 1/20/2025 at 12:22 AM, L Ron Burgundy said:

He played well enough to win tonight.   His team made a lot of mistakes.  

He's 30 in over two years.

[Danger Mouse]

I like him a lot.

 

The huge grin with which he met Josh after the game was class all the way. He wants this as much as anyone ever has - more, maybe, considering his individual achievements. He fell again at an early hurdle and he acted like an absolute legend. No sulking no bitterness. No childishness. 

 

He’s one of the best, most entertaining players to have played the game and he’s one of the good guys. I wish he played in the NFC so I could want better things for him. 
 

 

[WillSaints81]

On 1/20/2025 at 2:19 AM, ghostwriter said:

I think that in the uppermost echelon of QBs you have Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson.

 

Underneath them you probably have Joe Burrow, CJ Stroud, Jayden Daniels, Justin Herbert, Jared Goff and Matt Stafford etc..

 

 

Did you put Joe Burrow in the second tier? 

[reddogblitz]

On 1/19/2025 at 6:48 PM, Best Williams Available said:

Bmore is also alright. Their worst fans and our worst fans are not representative of their fanbases. I went to the Ravens game earlier in the year and the fans we encountered before and after were great. I like them a helluva lot better than KC, Cinci etc.

 

And they have a cool band that was formerly the Baltimore Colts Band which they kept active when the Colts moved out in the middle of the night and are now the Ravens Band. Very cool IMHO.

[UKBillFan]

On 1/21/2025 at 1:29 PM, tigerthelion said:

I tend to agree with your overall ideas here.  I think the media in general goes a little overboard with turnovers, and a QB can overcome them if he puts touchdowns on the board.   

 

I can't say Lamar outplayed Allen, but maybe Allen didn't outplay Lamar by that much either.  The turnovers were a big part of the game, though.  If Lamar didn't dig his team a hole in the first half, he wouldn't have had to scramble to claw them back in the second half.   I feel that if the Bills were down, we would have obviously seen a different plan of attack from Allen on offense.  It was clear that the Bills were trying to run clock and control the ball in the second half, at least to my eyes.  They did not want Josh taking any chances.  If Buffalo was down by 14 points, I am pretty sure Josh airs it out with more passes at the line of scrimmage.  Maybe he throws a few touchdowns, maybe he has a pick or two. We will never know.  We can only go by what we know, and what happened.  The Bills took a page out of the Chiefs playbook and won ugly.  

 

Lamar's ceiling was higher than Josh's on Monday, but his floor was lower. It very much was a page from the Chiefs playbook - keep it clean and let the opposition beat themselves. Josh of yesteryear wouldn't have managed it, possibly as he'd feel it was all on him due a lack of a run game. That's what makes Lamar's turnovers even worse. He had Henry, he had Hill. He didn't need to risk it. He did and it cost them. Josh played safe and it's the Bills in the Championship game.

[Chugga]

It’s kind of ironic because when I originally made this thread it was because I felt like Lamar was going to get unfairly torn apart by the national media and every corner of the sports world for his playoff mistakes.  But here we are Wednesday evening and somehow he’s come out of this game kinda unscathed.  Never saw this coming

[BobbyC81]

On 1/20/2025 at 5:49 AM, JP51 said:

I think if you throw out the int and the fumble he may have outplayed him a bit but honestly how do you just throw that out? 

Yeah, on the flipside, that’s like when someone like Barkley has a huge yardage day with a long TD, there’s always someone who’ll say “Yeah, but if you take away that 70 yard run, he only had 80 yards on his other 20 carries, which is only a 4 yard average.”

[Bill from NYC]

On 1/19/2025 at 9:47 PM, Virgil said:

Ravens and Lamar are way better than j gave them credit for.  Props to them.  We are lucky to escape with a win?

If we were lucky to escape with a win (and you may be at least partially correct), that means to me that if we play our best game we should be able to destroy The KC Swifties.  

[JP51]

1 hour ago, BobbyC81 said:

Yeah, on the flipside, that’s like when someone like Barkley has a huge yardage day with a long TD, there’s always someone who’ll say “Yeah, but if you take away that 70 yard run, he only had 80 yards on his other 20 carries, which is only a 4 yard average.”

Right! Like how do you take the actual performance out of measuring well... performance

[dma0034]

A few thoughts:

 

1. MVP - Lamar 100% deserved to win a MVP over the last two years but not both. Last year it was because of team success and then the same voters decided that individual statistics outweighs that.

 

2. I think Lamar and Allen have been the two best QBs over the last two years. They create so many opportunities for their teams and Defenses have to play to protect against them running

 

3. Lamar has a playoff problem. So do the Ravens as a whole but he has multiple turnovers in 4 out of his 8 playoff games. This year he had one interception that wasn't off his WR's hands and he quickly throws a terrible pick to Rapp. On the fumble he had Likely immediately and chose to try and deke and wasn't aware that the ball was slippery or something? The Ravens may be the most talented team in the league (either them or the Eagles imo) and yet continue to fail. Makes me wonder about whether John Harbaugh is a problem or not

 

4. I question if Lamar will ever win a Superbowl. He does have some injuries in the past but the moment he loses half a step his effectiveness as a runner goes down and allows Defenses to not have to crowd the line. He has never had elite arm strength and while he has improved as a passer the amount of throws he makes to players with 3 yards of seperation is insane. He may only have 5-6 more years of elite play left

[BarleyNY]

On 1/21/2025 at 7:37 AM, NewEra said:

If Lamar could’ve found a way to beat the Raiders or the Browns we would’ve had to play against Zay Flowers too.  But he couldn’t- so his best playmaker had to play week 18 and got injured.  Sucks for them.  Beat the bad teams next time

Yep. I’ve got one big criticism of John Harbaugh - his teams have almost always been undisciplined. That leads to mistakes. Often it’s dumb personal foul or Offside penalties. Sometimes it’s careless turnovers. Those mistakes can cost them any game - including against poor teams. Lamar had two of those ridiculously careless TOs on Sunday and it cost them a real chance to win the game.