OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Lamar Jackson has little interest in talking about other quarterbacks, both past and present. He sidesteps the questions like he does with blitzing linebackers bursting through the A gap.
Since he entered the NFL, reporters have tried to cajole Jackson to talk in-depth about his contemporaries, to reveal his admiration for other top quarterbacks, to wax poetic about the guys who he watched and emulated as a kid growing up in South Florida.
Those queries usually end up similarly to how Jackson answered a two-part question Sunday about his relationship with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the guy he will share a field with Thursday night in the NFL’s regular-season opener.
“I don’t have a relationship with him. I don’t think I have a relationship with any quarterback in the league,” Jackson said. “I don’t take anything from him. I just play my game, but he’s a great quarterback. I’m going to say that. He has the accolades to prove it. He makes things happen on the field that make his team successful.”
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This is season No. 7 for Jackson. In some ways, he insists he feels like a rookie. He’s determined to hold on to the youthful exuberance that most rookies possess. That helps him remember to cherish every day he has in the NFL.
In other ways, Jackson knows his NFL clock is ticking, particularly when it comes to accomplishing the one thing he’s obsessed over since that late April 2018 night when he held up a Baltimore Ravens jersey as a newly minted first-round pick. It’s also the thing Mahomes and the Chiefs have done three times over. Jackson has never led his team to a Super Bowl. The Ravens got close last season. That they couldn’t finish the job — and the Chiefs did — ate at Jackson all offseason. He thinks about it all hours of the day, whether he’s on the football field or not.
“I haven’t gotten a Super Bowl yet. That’s the only thing that bothers me,” Jackson said. “I don’t care what (naysayers) say because they still talk about Michael Jordan, they still talk about LeBron (James). They still talk about Steph Curry. Those guys got championships. I don’t have one yet. So it’s like, ‘All right, cool, you’re going to talk about me.’ I need to get a championship, a few championships. But I know they’re still going to talk about me. I have to live with it.”
Jackson turns 28 in January, his birthday falling a few days after the end of the regular season and a few days before the start of the NFL playoffs. With two MVP awards and three Pro Bowl selections on his resume, with wins in 58 of the 77 regular-season games he’s started since entering the NFL, Jackson is in the unenviable position of having nothing really to prove over the next four months of the regular season.
Jackson and the 2024 Ravens will be ultimately judged by what they do if they make the playoffs. They are just 2-4 in playoff games with Jackson as their quarterback. Their postseason issues, which were on full display during the team’s home AFC championship loss to the Chiefs in January, have been numerous. However, Jackson has absorbed an abundance of blame with nine turnovers in those six contests — and Baltimore’s much-ballyhooed offense averaging just over 10 points per game in the losses.
The Ravens are 2-4 in playoff games quarterbacked by Lamar Jackson, something that weighs heavily on the two-time NFL MVP. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
“I think the thing that gets lost about that narrative is one, it’s real and it’s true; and two, you earn your way into that narrative,” said former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky. “That is, I guess, a burden that you are in rare air to be in. There’s not a ton of guys in the NFL that are grouped into that, that while we appreciate and love and admire the regular-season accomplishments, you don’t get into a different level of conversation until that becomes what you do in the playoffs.
“I do think it’s still important to say that the growth of Lamar last season was really high-end. The way that he developed as a passer in their drop-pass game and the full-field reads, how quickly he got the ball out of his hands in their quick passing game, the development of that. … We can acknowledge the growth and also acknowledge the air that he’s in.”
Only four quarterbacks who will start in Week 1 have been starters for a Super Bowl winner. The list starts with Mahomes and also includes Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson and Matthew Stafford. Jackson’s elusive pursuit has plenty of company from the likes of Josh Allen, Dak Prescott, Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, Brock Purdy, Trevor Lawrence and Jalen Hurts. Burrow, Hurts and Purdy have at least played in Super Bowls.
Yet, Jackson is the only guy in that group who has won multiple MVP awards and whose head coach said this in July:
“The vision that we have together is that Lamar Jackson is going to become and be known and be recognized as the greatest quarterback ever to play in the history of the National Football League,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said.
Since the NFL announced mid-May that Chiefs-Ravens would kick off the regular season, Jackson and Mahomes have shared the game’s promotional marquee. They are two of the faces of the NFL and have combined to win four of the past six MVP trophies.
With three Super Bowl victories and another appearance in the past five years, Mahomes has put himself in his own stratosphere. That’s been true on the field and Madison Avenue. According to Forbes, the Chiefs quarterback made $20 million in endorsements alone last season, thanks to partnerships with Adidas, State Farm, Gatorade, Subway, Oakley and Coors Light, among others.
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“Mahomes, right now, is head and shoulders above everybody. In second place right now is probably Travis Kelce, an upshot from Taylor Swift,” said Bob Dorfman, a San Francisco-based sports marketing guru. “With Jackson, his upside depends on how well he does in the postseason. It’s unlimited if he can finally get over the hump.”
Mahomes seemingly embraces the limelight, or at least tolerates it. He’s out and about at different events around Kansas City. He and his wife, Brittany, have financial stakes in three Kansas City sports franchises. The Mahomes family is pictured together often. Mahomes’ professional circle, which includes his agent Chris Cabott and performance trainer Bobby Stroupe, is well defined.
That contrasts greatly with Jackson, who in a lot of ways is an NFL superstar hiding in plain sight. That’s exactly the way he wants it. Jackson doesn’t have a ton of endorsement deals, and that’s seemingly been his preference. Given his fame and popularity, particularly with kids, Jackson would be an easy sell for several companies. His known investments are mostly in local ventures in his hometown of Pompano Beach, Fla., or his NFL home in Baltimore.
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The role Jackson’s mother, Felicia Jones, has played in his life is well documented. Jackson has spoken about his mother, siblings and his 3-year-old daughter, Milan, at different points of his career — even though the family stays well out of the public eye. Jackson doesn’t have an agent or a high-profile quarterback coach or athletic trainer. Little is known about his inner circle and relationships beyond the fact that rapper Kodak Black has been a friend of his since childhood.
“You guys talk to us about football. My personal life, I leave that personal,” Jackson said. “At the end of the day, it’s about me playing football. It’s not about anything else. It’s not about who I knew growing up. That didn’t help me get here. My mindset helped me get here. That’s why I never looked at it like, ‘Oh, yeah, when I get to the league, I’m going to be doing this, or talking about these people.’ No, if I want to talk about these people, they would have been around me. You guys would have been seeing that.”
Fiercely protective of his and his family’s privacy, Jackson describes himself as a homebody who enjoys hanging out with loved ones, doting on his daughter, watching cartoons and listening to music. The author of a children’s book — “I Dream, You Dream, Let Us Dream!” — that encourages kids to dream big, Jackson and his Forever Dreamers Foundation hosts an annual event in Pompano Beach called “Fun Day with LJ” that caters to kids.
Funday With LJ 2024 was a huge success! Thank you to the parents for bringing the kids out! 🙏🏾
Thank you to the Boynton Beach Police Department, Boynton Beach Fire & Rescue, @BoyntonBeachHR @boyntonbeachrec for all your help and support! 💜
🎥: TruzzProductionz™@Lj_era8 pic.twitter.com/uGPKpBgxzf
— Forever Dreamers Foundation (@forever8dreame1) July 15, 2024
Jackson would like to have a similar event for children in Baltimore, but he worries about safety concerns because his presence draws such a crowd. He joked that every time he goes out in public, an impromptu autograph show or photo shoot commences. He learned long ago that it’s impossible to please everyone.
“You have to be with me to know me,” Jackson said. “I’m going to show love to everyone. We’re all humans at the end of the day, and I don’t want anybody to get a bad rap on me. I’m not a bad person. I’m who I am. I’m going to just be me, but I see people saying, ‘I love Lamar, he’s like this or he’s like that.’ It’s like, you don’t know me. I just be chilling, for real. I’m not even outgoing. I’d just rather be in my house, but if I could go out and hang out with my family, I’d do that.”
Those who know Jackson well even choose their words about him carefully with the quarterback already a lightning rod for scrutiny. They also understand that Jackson doesn’t particularly care what “outsiders” know about him, but why give the “talking heads” another headline?
“That’s something that I think is why this whole league respects him,” said Ravens wide receiver Nelson Agholor, who spends time with Jackson in the offseason in South Florida. “For him to be as special of a talent as he is, he’s also the most authentic man that we’ve seen. He’s very consistent as a human being. He keeps everything real, he respects real and he embraces everybody to be themselves. That’s what you love about him.
“He speaks life into everybody in here, because everything is about the ultimate goal.”
Around the Ravens’ facility, Jackson is the Pied Piper. His locker is a popular gathering spot for teammates. It’s not unique to see Jackson locked in a light-hearted conversation with a defensive player, or even a member of Baltimore’s practice squad.
As he thought this offseason about ways to help his team get to another level, Jackson first reflected on his play. He felt he got “fat” last year and lacked the elite explosiveness that had long been his trademark. He’s lost weight and is as lean as he’s been in years, prompting Roquan Smith to say recently that Jackson looks like he did when he was at Louisville and winning the Heisman Trophy.
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Jackson also thought more about his role as a leader and felt like he needed to be more vocal. Part of that is being more open with teammates on what he expects. Jackson acknowledged that he’s struggled to get on teammates in the past because he didn’t want them to think he’s lost faith in them. There’s also an element of being more conversational with offensive coordinator Todd Monken and the rest of the coaching staff about what he likes and doesn’t like.
“What I’ve noticed about Lamar really is more of an intangible thing: his urgency as a leader, his urgency with other players,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said. “He’s just really in tune with the other players every single practice. He’s so engaged with the coaches. He’s engaged with his teammates. Heck, he’s engaged with me — we talk personnel. … He’s got great ideas and suggestions. He just really wants to win badly.”
Jackson has an unwavering belief in himself and how he does things. He’s had to, given the skepticism he’s faced about his NFL quarterback prospects since he was young. His way doesn’t always perfectly align with how the Ravens see things. For example, they’d surely prefer that he attends the team’s voluntary offseason workouts, which Jackson has done in recent years only sporadically.
However, Jackson and the Ravens, who agreed to a five-year, $260 million contract extension in April 2023, ending a difficult year-plus negotiation, are in lockstep in what’s truly important to each other. Both sides understand there has to be a little give.
“Like I always tell you guys, I love competing and I hate to lose. I really hate it,” Jackson said. “These are all my brothers here. They know what you see from me is what you get.”
As the game played out on a screen in the quarterback room this summer, Jackson grew increasingly agitated. He has what some Ravens have described as a photographic memory, so Jackson didn’t need to be reminded of some of the low moments from Baltimore’s 17-10 loss to the Chiefs in the AFC championship. This, however, was teaching tape for quarterbacks coach Tee Martin — and there was something to be gained from watching it.
“I wanted to rip the (screen) in half,” Jackson said while uttering a guttural sigh.
Jackson laid out all the Ravens’ miscues: poor passes, costly turnovers, botched assignments, penalties. Jackson felt the Ravens put too much pressure on themselves and didn’t react well to adversity, spending too much time dwelling on what had already happened.
“That was us. That was our doing,” Jackson said. “Those guys had won championships. Those guys, I feel, they knew how to come out of those situations. We didn’t. I felt we were kind of immature. It was like, ‘We’ve got to make something happen fast,’ and we got out of our bodies. We didn’t need to. We can’t get frustrated with adversity.”
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Jackson vividly remembers the eerie feeling in the locker room, how a group of guys who were convinced they were part of the best team in football was reduced to stunned silence and again forced to take a backseat to the Chiefs. For Jackson, that meant more questions about his postseason struggles.
“Lamar knows it. He’s got to get past (Mahomes) when it matters most,” Orlovsky said. “He’s not going to run from that. I think it’s a good dynamic. Obviously, the NFL is incredibly healthy with their young quarterbacks. I always say this: The great thing about Lamar — and I say this in spending time with him and spending time with the Ravens organization — he is unapologetically who he is. There’s really nobody in the league like him at that position. There’s just not. I think that lies the beauty within him outside his tremendous talent.”
Jackson’s confidence in himself and uber competitiveness are probably the best explanations as to why he has always been so reluctant to talk about other quarterbacks and embrace comparisons with past NFL stars.
But there’s also the matter of him not wanting to add to a narrative out there that he believes is overblown. Sure, Jackson enjoyed and admired watching other players, including Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb and Reggie Bush. But he didn’t grow up with the idea of being the next anybody.
All he’s ever wanted to be is the best Lamar Jackson. He’s well on his way, but Jackson understands there are still quite a few chapters that need to be written.
“The story will be told about me probably when I’m done playing,” Jackson said. “I don’t try and tell stories about my past. I’m living in the moment right now. I remember everything that has gone on — how I felt at the time and all of that. But right now, I focus on what’s in front of me.”
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)