The Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec also noted Jackson’s passing these past couple weeks.
“For the second consecutive week, Jackson was on point with his accuracy and decision-making,” Zrebiec wrote. “He completed 22-of-37 passes and the 316 passing yards were 8 short of tying his career high. In the past two weeks, Jackson has two of the top three passing games in his career, and he would have consecutive 300 yards passing games had the receivers held on to the ball last week.”
This production by Jackson has come without many of their top offensive players on the field. The Ravens have the second-most salary cap on injured reserve ($33.7 million), and are tied for the most players on injured reserve (18) with the Dallas Cowboys.
Moreover, the Ravens offensive line is drawing comparisons to being “glued together,” by NFL.com’s Chase Goodbread, yet Jackson is elusive as ever.
“Denver flipped star pass rusher Von Miller to the other side of the line to match him up with Villanueva’s replacement, veteran backup Andre Smith,” Goodbread wrote. “And although Smith looked overmatched at times, the recipe for disaster didn’t really manifest, thanks in part to Lamar Jackson’s status as the league’s most elusive quarterback. The Broncos blitzed on 65% of dropbacks, their most in a single game in the Next Gen Stats era, yet managed to pressure Jackson on just 16% of their blitzes.”
Prior to the Broncos game, Jackson was given the ninth-best odds to win the NFL MVP, according to oddsshark.com (+1600). It will be interesting to see if/how much this will improve following his performance in Week 4.
