Through week 12 of the 2021 season, the Ravens record sat at an enviable (8-3). It wasn’t always pretty. Things didn’t always go as planned. And of course, there was that daunting and at times disheartening lengthy list of injuries that prevented the team from realizing their innate potential. But despite it all, the Ravens were the No. 1 seed in the AFC heading into Week 13. And as Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells once famously said, “you are what your record says you are”.
But clearly, there were flaws – major flaws that were exposed by the Miami Dolphins during a Week 10 Thursday Night affair in South Florida. Head coach Brian Flores’ carefully crafted game plan threw Lamar Jackson for a loop. Flores strategically employed a Cover 0 scheme featuring a variety of looks to create confusion and hesitation on Jackson’s part. Through the art of deception, the Dolphins blurred Lamar’s hot reads while sending more rushers than the Ravens offensive line could account for. The strategy was executed perfectly as Miami’s then 30th-ranked defense, which up to that point in the season had yielded 26.9 points per game, held the league’s 7th most prolific scoring offense to just 10 points.
Other teams took notice.
And Lamar was never the same for the balance of the season.
In the NFL, until a team can prove that it can correct or counter a weakness, opponents will continue to try and exploit it. That’s what winning teams do – expose an opponent’s flaws more productively than their own are exposed. As Al Pacino’s character in Any Given Sunday once said, “that’s the difference between winning and losing!”
So the Ravens never really corrected the weakness that was shredded by Flores. Greg Roman practically admitted as much in December when asked if he had concerns over teams becoming more blitz happy against the Ravens.
“A little bit. A little bit, and we’ve done a good job with it. That game was … It was what it was; it was a little bit of an aberration, but it’s definitely something that we work on full speed. We’ve seen some of it; the touchdown the other night was one of them. We always want to take the approach of bring that blitz on, [and] we’ll make you pay – that’s our attitude.”
But the Ravens never did – they never really made teams pay for the risks of blitzing.
Heading into that Dolphins game, the Ravens offense measured up well, statistically speaking.
Upon the season’s conclusion those numbers took a big hit:
That’s quite a precipitous drop over the course of 9 games.
Lamar’s worst performance of the season was ironically during a winning effort under the national spotlight of Sunday Night Football. In that 16-10 win over the Browns, Jackson threw four interceptions, three of them coming within the span of just six attempts, all adding up to a putrid 46.5 passer rating. When asked about the effort, the Ravens signal caller replied:
“Bad passes and inaccurate, under thrown passes – that’s all I’ve seen. Bad reads. I looked like a rookie. I looked like a rookie.”
Before that season-altering game in Miami, Lamar was an MVP candidate. Despite a sieve of an offensive line, a backfield that consisted of running backs with thinly worn tires, the absence of the league’s best blocking tight end (Nick Boyle) and a promising rookie receiver (Rashod Bateman) who missed five games, Lamar carried his team to a (6-2) start.
The most electrifying of his performances came against the Colts at M&T Bank Stadium during Monday Night Football when Lamar was 37 of 43 for 442 yards, 4 TDs and 0 INTs. He also rushed for another 62 yards. But it’s important to note that in this 31-25 overtime victory, the Ravens trailed 22-3 at the 3:06 mark of the third quarter. When they had no option other then to operate out of a no-huddle, hurry-up attack, Lamar was 22 of 24 for 265 yards, 4 TDs plus two successful two-point conversions to Mark Andrews – all of it at the expense of the league’s 8th-ranked defense.
Lamar looked like he was in his element playing street ball. His teammates embraced the energy and it seemingly lifted the passing offense to a level that we hadn’t seen before or since with Jackson behind center. And it’s mind-numbingly insane that the Ravens never used the approach again in a proactive way until they sent Josh Johnson out onto the field as their starter in Cincinnati during Week 16. Yes, the Josh Johnson that the Ravens claimed just a few days prior.
We heard Roman talk about the “vault” and how he prefers to spread out the weapons stored in this mysterious coffer. I don’t get it. It was obvious to everyone watching the game v. Indianapolis that the Ravens had a good defense gassed and on the run. It was akin to shooting fish in a barrel and more importantly it put Lamar in a position of comfort where his chances for success, particularly behind an offensive line stabilized by duct tape and gauze bandages, were increased exponentially.
I’m sure there’s a good reason, right? I just don’t know what it is. Along with all of you, I’m forced to interpret, to speculate.
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What I do know, is that on that 69 degree October evening, for 18 minutes plus an overtime possession, Lamar Jackson played like the franchise quarterback he can be and the one who expects to sign a record-setting contract with the Ravens at some point during the next, oh I don’t know, 24 months? According to GM Eric DeCosta, the two sides are talking.
“I have had, probably, I don’t know, five or six conversations at different points over the last year in regard to his contract. We picked up his option, as you know. I think, at this point, I would say that we’re working at Lamar’s pace. He’s comfortable where we are right now. I think he feels that we have a lot of unfinished business [and] he has a lot of unfinished business. He wants to win the division. He wants to win the Super Bowl. I think he and I both share that same vision. So, that’s basically where we stand. There’s a great line of communication. I know that Lamar knows he can come up to see me at any point. He can call me at any point; we actually talked this week. He can text me at any point. We will operate based on his urgency.”
Last week during a 410 Sports Talk podcast, former Ravens WR Qadry Ismail revealed that after speaking with an unnamed member of the media on the beat and in the know, Lamar has already turned down “generational” wealth. If true, Jackson apparently envisions himself as being among the game’s greats and should be paid accordingly. And given his obvious self-confidence, Lamar’s plan is to bet on himself. If successful and he climbs to the pinnacle of the league and hoists a Lombardi, Lamar, the Ravens and their fans will all become winners and that big pay day will follow. But if recent history is any indication, cashing in has its consequences.
In a piece published by The Athletic, Josh Howe writes:
“Since the league’s salary structure changed in 2011 with the rookie wage scale, seven teams had a quarterback who consumed at least 15.8 percent of their salary cap. All seven teams had losing records and missed the playoffs.”
Taking the thought process a step farther, Howe points out that “16 teams from 2011-21 have had a quarterback whose cap hit absorbed at least 15 percent of their salary cap. Those 16 teams had a combined .523 regular-season winning percentage. Just seven of those teams made the playoffs, and only four won a game. The 2016 Falcons were the only team to reach the Super Bowl.”
Closer to home, Joe Flacco led the Ravens to a Super Bowl 47 victory in 2013 when he represented just 6.6% of the team’s cap. After signing his big deal, the Ravens won just one playoff game over the course of the next six seasons.
In today’s NFL, the passing game is vital and that places even more emphasis on the most highlighted position in all of sports – the quarterback. And that emphasis will become increasingly more expensive. To assemble his fine piece, Howe consulted with an unnamed NFL GM about the inflationary trends.
“A lot of it depends on how you want to build your team,” the general manager said. “If you get the franchise guy like Mahomes or Burrow, it’s just part of the deal. You have to pay it, whether it’s $45 million or whatever. They’re too hard to find.”
The challenge for the Ravens is to determine if Lamar does fall in line with the talents and the predictable career trajectories of Mahomes and Burrow. If they miss, the Ravens could be in playoff purgatory for years. Adding to the challenge is the fact that Lamar isn’t the prototypical franchise quarterback and one has to wonder, given the way the 2021 season unfolded, if the Ravens employ the coaching brain trust to consistently glean the needed results from Lamar to justify the monster contract.
It’s a bridge up ahead that the team will someday soon be forced to cross. When exactly that happens lies in Lamar’s sense of urgency. But like the 2021 season, getting there won’t always be pretty, and it all might not go according to plan.
