Stats don’t lie: Lamar Jackson worthy of MVP consideration
Much has been made of former Louisville Cardinal and current Baltimore Raven Lamar Jackson’s ability, or lack thereof, to throw the football. Why statistics tell a different story, and why Jackson is worthy of MVP consideration.
Lamar Jackson is a high-level NFL quarterback worthy of MVP consideration. Let me prove it to you.
Entering his sophomore campaign leading a Baltimore Ravens team on the heels of a first-round playoff loss, Jackson still had detractors following a promising second half of 2018 that ended in a tough way.
Though Jackson demonstrated the ability to get things done on the ground and through the air, when it mattered most, the Ravens offense sputtered against a solid San Diego Chargers defense.
While the Ravens finished the regular season 6-1 with Jackson as a starter, most pundits doubted Jackson’s ability to get things done through the air and pointed at the longevity of former rushing QB specialists like Michael Vick, who never played a complete season in the league, or Robert Griffin III, who has been plagued by injuries since his rookie season.
Jackson has set out to prove he is different, however. And so far in 2019, the 22-year-old from Pompano Beach, Florida has been electric.
As a quarterback, Jackson is still leading the league through 9 games with 6.4 rushing yards per game. He is 10th overall in rushing yards, but among the top 21 rushers in the league, he and San Francisco’s Matt Breida are the only two players with fewer than 100 rushing attempts.
Most around the league knew Jackson could run the ball, but it’s through the air where he has doubters. That’s why Jackson is out to prove that he can be a pass-first guy, and do so efficiently.
So far in 2019, Jackson is right in the middle of the pack in the NFL in nearly every passing category. He is 20th in total passing yards, 19th in completion percentage, and 16th in passing touchdowns.
A look beyond pure yardage and completion percentages, however, and Jackson’s game tells a different story.
Through the midway point of the season, Jackson is ranked 14th in passer rating and 12th among full-time starters in the category. He is ahead of players like Phillip Rivers, Tom Brady, and Jared Goff, among others, and is just behind Matt Ryan, Dak Prescott, and Aaron Rodgers.
Even more impressively, Jackson had a perfect passer rating in the Ravens’ season opener at the Dolphins and has since ranked among the top 20 in the league on a weekly basis in passer rating.
But just how impressive has Jackson’s game been overall among NFL quarterbacks? ESPN’s total QBR (total quarterback rating) has attempted to answer this question since 2011 by calculating how effective a quarterback is in the overall frame of what his team needs at that moment.
Total QBR calculates the differences, for instance, between a 1st-and-10 screen pass that goes for 20 yards vs a 3rd and long pass that carries to the sticks.
The metric also factors in other things like rushing yards and considers “garbage time” statistics.
Considering what he means to his team, Jackson consistently ranks among the league’s elite in 2019.
Total QBR through week 9
1. Dak Prescott 81.1
2. Patrick Mahomes 80.7
3. Russell Wilson 79.6
4. DeShaun Watson 75.8
5. Lamar Jackson 70.9
9. Aaron Rodgers 63.0
11. Tom Brady 60.0
That is some pretty good company for a second-year quarterback projected by many to be a bust.
Jackson still has a long way to go in the passing game- there is no way around it. But why fix what isn’t broken? Sure, Jackson can complete intermediate and deep throws on a consistent basis, but if Baltimore is finding success using a pistol or read-option type of offense and keeping it on the ground, there is no sense in changing it.
When you factor in just how effective Jackson has been in Baltimore’s offense this season, there is maybe only one player who is doing it better in Seattle’s Russell Wilson.
That’s why the most recent MVP odds -via the Action Network- have the Seahawks veteran and Jackson knotted as the two front-runners at the season’s halfway point.
Should Jackson continue on this clip, he will almost certainly become the odds-on favorite to win league MVP.
More. Booger McFarland eats crow over Jackson slander. light
Jackson is on-pace to shatter Michael Vick’s single-season rushing record for a quarterback. Vick rushed for 1,036 yards in 2006, but at his current rate, Jackson would eclipse that with more than three games left to go in 2019.
At this point in the season, he has faced the league’s 19th-toughest schedule. Still ahead, he will face the Rams, 49ers, and Bills- three of the top four defenses in the league. If he continues his strong play, it will be against one of the tougher back halves of any schedule in the AFC.
If Jackson leads the league in yards per carry and continues to maintain a top 15 passer rating, it’s hard to see him not being the NFL’s most valuable player.