TAMPA, Fla. — Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson had done everything else. He had thrown four touchdown passes. He would toss one more for good measure. He had picked up some key first downs with his legs. He had settled the offense after a rocky start by leading it on six consecutive scoring drives as the Ravens rattled off 34 unanswered points against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
With the Ravens facing a second-and-7 from their 33 and looking to build on a 16-point lead, Jackson saw an opportunity to do one more thing. As Derrick Henry cut back and found an opening to his left, Jackson decided to morph into a $260 million lead blocker.
Lamar Jackson lead blocking for Derrick Henry is incredible.
📺: #BALvsTB on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus and ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/oCXd9YusdH— NFL (@NFL) October 22, 2024
Jackson sprinted ahead of Henry and impeded the path of pursuing Buccaneers cornerback Tyrek Funderburk. Then, Jackson blocked safety Antoine Winfield Jr., allowing Henry to pick up a lot more yards down the far sideline. It was only fitting that six plays later, Jackson connected with Henry for a 13-yard touchdown pass that all but secured the Ravens’ 41-31 victory over the Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium.
“It speaks for itself. That’s the kind of stuff that Lamar does, and how about the way he runs? He is just the ultimate competitor,” said Ravens coach John Harbaugh. “There is no question about it. I don’t know if I’ve seen a better competitor than Lamar Jackson. It’s just amazing.”
Nearly 65,000 at Raymond James Stadium and a “Monday Night Football” audience, which has been electrified by Baltimore’s quarterback quite a few times before, were treated to Jackson’s latest tour de force. His 49-yard touchdown pass to Rashod Bateman about midway through the third quarter was one of the prettiest throws of his career. But Jackson’s overall body of work Monday was the latest proof that nobody is playing the quarterback position better than he is currently.
LAMAR DEEP TO BATEMAN. 49-YARD TOUCHDOWN.
📺: #BALvsTB on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus and ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/NvMIEOug86— NFL (@NFL) October 22, 2024
“The best in the league. And if people don’t think so, I don’t know. They’re not watching football. They’re just hating,” said Ravens defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike.
There were also two touchdown passes to Mark Andrews, the first one making the tight end the franchise’s all-time leader with 42 touchdown receptions. The second one rewarded a gutsy decision by Harbaugh to go for it on fourth-and-3 from Tampa Bay’s 4-yard line. There was an 18-yard touchdown to Justice Hill on a screen pass, and then the 13-yard connection to Henry, who Tampa Bay was clearly tired of chasing and tackling.
All told, Jackson accounted for 333 total yards, had as many incompletions as touchdown passes and could have had an even more impressive statline had his second-quarter touchdown run not been nullified by a penalty. Yet, the most impressive thing Jackson may have done Monday was steadying the Ravens after a rocky start that featured breakdowns, penalties and two straight Buccaneers scoring drives.
“No conversations really have to be had when Lamar Jackson is your quarterback,” said Bateman, who had a career night with four catches for 121 yards and the touchdown. “If he stays poised, we stay poised. He’ll lead us, and he has been doing a good job of that.”
Early in the game, it appeared the Buccaneers might blow the Ravens out of the building. Jackson then took over and, aided by two Marlon Humphrey interceptions of Baker Mayfield, Baltimore’s two-time MVP quarterback never let the Tampa Bay defense up for air until the game was no longer in doubt.
“‘Let’s go. You know we have to score points,’” Jackson told his teammates in the huddle after falling behind early. “To us, we see a team just moving the ball and putting points on the board without us scoring. We didn’t really do anything on our first drive. It’s like, ‘Man, we have to have some urgency with ourselves,’ and that’s what it was. I believe that’s what we did the next couple of drives. We started putting points on the board.”
Did they ever. After punting on their first possession, the Ravens’ next six drives went like this: touchdown, touchdown, field goal, field goal, touchdown, touchdown. And after Jackson’s lone mistake of the night, an errant backward pass to receiver Zay Flowers that became a turnover, Baltimore added another touchdown.
That’s a JACKSON FIVE!
Tune in on ESPN/ABC! pic.twitter.com/wgNN6V6lSw
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) October 22, 2024
The Ravens have now won five straight games to improve to 5-2. In doing so, they’ve left little doubt that they currently possess the AFC’s top offense. They’re averaging 35 points and 479 yards per game over their winning streak after putting up 508 yards on Todd Bowles’ team Monday night. Their 244 rushing yards Monday makes them just the fourth team since 1980 to have at least 1,400 rushing yards through seven games.
They have the league’s leading MVP candidate in Jackson, who is playing inarguably the best football of his career, and the NFL’s leading rusher in Henry, who added 169 more yards to his total and now has 873 on the season to go along with 10 total touchdowns.
Remember all those September questions about what’s wrong with Andrews? He has 11 catches for 162 yards and three touchdowns over the past three games. Remember the narrative that Bateman and Jackson could never get on the same page? Bateman now has 12 catches for 250 yards and two scores over his last three games.
Then, you still have Flowers, Hill and Isaiah Likely making plays when given opportunities. Eight different Ravens had a reception on Monday.
“You kind of look at our stats, and everybody’s able to touch the ball — everybody’s able to do something,” said Andrews, who had four catches for 41 yards and two touchdowns. “That’s what I think makes us so dangerous is that we’re spreading the ball around. We have athletes and playmakers all (across) the board.”
The only group that really has stopped the Ravens in recent weeks is the Ravens themselves. Even Monday, when they marched up and down the field for the better part of three quarters, Baltimore was its own worst enemy at times. And the Ravens made a mess of the fourth quarter, too, despite entering the frame up 34-10.
The Ravens were assessed nine penalties for 85 yards. Late in the second quarter, penalties left them with a second-and-28 and a third-and-30, and they got a field goal on that drive. They had a third-and-25 on their first drive of the third quarter, too, but Justin Tucker converted a 52-yard field goal. Their fourth-quarter turnover, in which Jackson threw a backward pass, was a combination of a bad play call and poor execution.
Defensively, the Ravens started and finished poorly, and were run on for the first time this year, but they did get five straight stops spanning the second and third quarters. A chunk of Mayfield’s numbers (370 passing yards, three touchdowns) was achieved in garbage time, but there were still too many botched assignments, too many missed tackles and too many dropped interceptions. And the Ravens now could be without Humphrey, their top corner, after he sustained a knee injury in the second quarter.
“We want to close the game out in a better fashion,” said Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton. “We want to catch picks, obviously. I don’t know, I guess we just have some bad juju right now, but we’ll get it off our backs.”
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Special teams got into the act as well, allowing the Buccaneers to recover a late onside kick. Two onside kicks have been successfully recovered through seven weeks of the NFL season. Both have been against the Ravens.
Yet, none of those miscues wound up mattering Monday — and that’s primarily because the Ravens had Jackson. Whether he was running, throwing, blocking or calmly leading, he was the star of the show.
Hamilton compared him to basketball star LeBron James, calling him “one of one.” Henry seemed almost in awe of the quarterback and was legitimately touched by his efforts on the lead block.
“That’s unbelievable that somebody is a quarterback of his caliber to be that unselfish, to be blocking downfield (for) your teammate,” Henry said. “That’s the type of guy that could have a hell of a game and (doesn’t) even know his stats. All he knows (are) the guys he threw to and the guys who scored. The dude is just incredible.”
(Photo: Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)
