Lamar Jackson signed a five-year, $260-million contract in the offseason. Now, folks expect him to throw it and catch it.
Jackson completed 22 of 38 passes for 236 yards and an interception in a 17-10 loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday. The Baltimore Ravens dropped seven passes, and pundits on national TV and sports talk radio found reasons to blame Jackson for the loss.
Ridiculous.
“I believe our guys are locked in right now,” Jackson told reporters. “They are going to be better. So will I.”
Jackson said he felt no need to discuss the drops with his receivers.
“Self-explanatory. I don’t need to say anything,” he said. “They feel how I feel. They want to make a play.”
Jackson is the best thing about the Ravens’ offense.
He’s 48-18 as a starter with 105 touchdowns and 40 interceptions. He has 13 100-yard games and has scored 28 touchdowns. Oh, he won the National Football League’s MVP in 2019, when he passed for 3,127 yards with 36 touchdown passes and six interceptions and rushed for 1,206 yards and seven touchdowns.
The problem with the Ravens has nothing to do with Jackson. It is due to Baltimore’s failure to add high-quality receivers and inoffensive weapons around him.
They took Rashod Bateman with the 27th pick in 2021, a second-round pick in running back J.K. Dobbins in 2020, first- and third-round picks on Marquise Brown and Miles Boykin in 2019, and first- and third-round picks on tight ends Hayden Hurst and Mark Andrews in 2018 — the same year they took Jackson
They drafted receiver Zay Flowers in the first round, and he looks like a quality player. Bateman is average, and Dobbins is on injured reserve. Andrews is a good player.
The Ravens’ receivers can redeem themselves Sunday against Tennessee.
Does Browns’ defense have tonic to slow 49ers QB Brock Purdy?
The Cleveland Browns have the NFL’s best defense. They can solidify that ranking by shutting down the NFL’s hottest quarterback, Brock Purdy.
Purdy passed for 252 yards and four touchdowns in a 42-10 blowout win over Dallas a week after completing 20 of 21 passes for 283 yards in a 35-16 win over the Arizona Cardinals.
He leads the NFL with a 123.1 passer rating for one of two undefeated teams. Philadelphia is the other.
“No matter what everyone else is saying, man, I know that there is another level that I can get to,” Purdy told reporters
The 49ers have scored at least 30 points in their five games.
Cleveland is allowing 196.8 yards per game and 3.8 yards per play. They’re yielding 125 yards passing per game and 22.6 on third down.
Wow.
“Yeah, a really good challenge for us. Up front, they do a great job with, I feel like, just getting after the offensive line and pushing them back and getting up on the quarterback’s toes,” Brock Purdy told reporters. “They do a great job of that.”
C.J. Stroud has become Houston Texas’ confidence man
C.J. Stroud continues to separate himself as the best rookie quarterback.
He’s thrown for 1,461 yards with seven touchdowns and no interceptions. More important, he’s earned the confidence of his teammates and coach.
The Texans, who took Stroud with the second pick of the draft, can get to .500 with a win over the Saints.
He’s already thrown for more than 300 yards twice, and he’s tossed at least two touchdown passes in three of the past four games.
“In college, I remember starting off — we were really good, and we ended up losing to Oregon, and I still played decently in that game, played pretty well,” Stroud told reporters. “And I remember still getting hate from it, and guys would just rally around me, and I was like, ‘Alright, man. This is my offense. I’ve got this.’
“And then now, in this offense, when I get in the huddle, and I’m saying the plays, guys look at me right in my eyes. Like, it feels like they trust me more than they did maybe in the preseason or like Week 1, [or] Week 2. So I definitely think when you put it on the field, that’s when guys in the building and the organization, front office, the coaches, the players, everybody — even the chefs look at you different.”
Bill Belichick looks to get New England Patriots untracked
New England coach Bill Belichick’s team has scored three points in the last two games.
In the process, Belichick suffered the two worst losses of his NFL coaching career. So there’s no time for sentiment as the Patriots get ready to play the Las Vegas Raiders, who are coached by Josh McDaniels, his offensive coordinator for 13 years.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve kind of — the horse is dead. We’ve beaten it enough,” McDaniels told reporters. “It is what it is. Every week, you got somebody who used to play there, or they know somebody on that staff, or whatever it is. It’s Game 6 for us.”
McDaniels said he expects the Patriots to play well.
“He’s been in every situation you can imagine,” McDaniels said. “I can’t speak for him on that, but I’ve been around them long enough to know that no matter how bad or how good it is, it’s usually kind of like this around the building, inside the walls of the building.”
Kirk Cousins on trade rumors: ‘I prefer to remain ignorant’
There’s been so much chatter about the potential of Minnesota quarterback Kirk Cousins getting traded that he had to address the issue this week.
That’s because the Vikings are 1-4, and Cousins is in the last year of his contract. He’s ignoring the outside noise like he always does.
“Aside from high school friends who may text me what they’re reading, and I text them back, ‘I prefer to remain ignorant, so I would appreciate not getting texts.’ So, aside from that, I really don’t know what’s going on,” Cousins told reporters. “I’ve been insulated at times to the point of being naïve and a little stupid, but I’d rather err on that side than consuming everything and having to, again, it takes your focus away from what is important.”
The Vikings can still save the season, but it must start with a road win over the Bears.
“You understand there’s a lot of football ahead and that ultimately that will drive it,” Cousins said. “But you can’t keep saying that, you’ve gotta do it. You’ve gotta go change it and win it.”
Raheem Mostert now on the run in Miami
The Miami Dolphins’ high-powered offense will definitely miss rookie De’Von Achane, who’s averaging an absurd 12.1 yards per carry.
But they still have Raheem Mostert, who’s among the league’s fastest runners. He’s averaging 5.4 per carry.
And as long as the Dolphins have Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle at receiver, he’s going to see a lot of seven-man fronts, which is a running back’s dream.
Jean-Jacques Taylor is the NFL Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter. He’s the author of Coach Prime: Deion Sanders and the Making of Men.