And to the point of the post, which I accidentally omitted, I don't think he deserves insulation from critique... or actual critique.
Hindsight is simply too easy, and his postseason play doesn't strike me as beyond the roll of the dice and a minor deviation in quality besides. I feel like "critique" would be limited to the unhelpful, descriptive kind. Mostly of the "that, but better" sort.
Is the unspoken subtext here that Lamar has become a symbol of black QBs in a way that Dak and Russell Wilson never did, and that any criticism of Lamar is basically cozying up to the buffoons who called him a running back years ago? It just feels like when you see a cabal of journos unwilling to say what everyone can see, it’s often because there’s some kind of political tribesmanship going on.
It's gotta be - my read is that the writers so aggressively and performatively shielding Jackson from any blame are doing so in opposition to an army of imagined Rush Limbaugh types that just don't exist.
It doesn't make a lot of sense when the guy looking for his 4th ring and 3rd in a row is also a racial minority QB. You would have to stretch it a bit and say Mahomes isn't a true "black QB" because he doesn't play like the old stereotype of one. Warren Moon and Doug Williams also didn't seem to count. The people who were (unlike Rush) smart enough not to say it aloud may have used criticisms of "athletic" QBs as code for "black", it certainly affected the perception of college QBs entering the draft, and with Lamar specifically being asked to work out as a WR at the combine. So if you squint here, you could see a race angle, namely that people want to defend a specific archetype of black QB that was previously damaged by racial assumptions. But that battle too is over, running QBs are ubiquitous, and there's no longer a noticeable draft penalty for being typecast that way.
they do actually exist, they are on sports radio, not the podcasts that Freddie listens to. I promise you the dominant narrative across the country is that Lamar is a choker who can't win in big games because he's an athletic running QB and not a cerebral winner like the past greats. Freddie is reacting to the reaction just like when he says everyone defends the amount of threes being taken in the NBA when in fact the dominant position is that 90s bully ball was the apex of basketball.
I mean... at this point is that not a fair opinion someone could have? Seeing as how he kind of keeps choking?
We're knocking on the door of a quarter century from Rush Limbaugh making asinine comments about Donovan McNabb. Now even the white QBs (including uh... Josh Allen) are expected to be highly mobile.
I agree and as the clip points out so does Lamar Jackson. I really like your football writing. Perhaps you'll post something about this Sunday's games.
As Vikings fan, you saw this same nonsense with Kirk Cousins. Nothing was ever his fault. They made excuses for him choking and underperforming in prime time games from 2018 until the bitter end in 2023. Like Jackson, on paper, Cousins was one of the greats. Yet, all the Vikings ended up having to show for his six years with the team was one lousy playoff win. I knew Atlanta made a huge mistake giving him that contract. I'd watched too many of his games to think he was worth even half of that money, but his collapse with the Falcons shocked even me.
Darnold absolutely choked both against the Lions and in the Playoffs in a massive way, but no one makes any excuses for him. I enjoyed the ride. He did better than anyone ever expected a $10M QB to do. It's tragic that the Lions loss got into his head, but that's what happened. I guess this kind of disappointment is part and parcel of being a Vikings fan though.....
I'm a Cousins apologist from when he was in Washington. I think the problem with him isn't his game (at least prior to this season) it's the bizarre way in which he hit the FA market. Never was close in value to what he was paid in MN and definitely not ATL. But consider the fact that Brock Purdy with the right system, right coach, lost an SB in over time. Prior to his injury I think it was fair to say 'guy you can win with, even if he won't put the team on his back.'
Conversation and at this point expectations with Jackson are IMO totally different. People are waiting for him to drag the Ravens across the line in these no margin for error playoff games against the Chiefs or Bills and he just hasn't been able to do it yet.
I think Peyton is a good comp and like Peyton, Lamar will eventually get his, as he'll get enough playoff reps to eventually be able to handle the heightened environment and/or the breaks will fall in his favor (Like Peyton's last Broncos title where he was almost replacement level.)
The racial angle is a stretch on everyone's part though (including our lovely author.) Can't it just be as simple as people really like Lamar and feel bad for him? (answer: probably not.) Maybe we need to look back at what people were saying about John Elway in 1990.
QBs at that level are judged by rings (even though we all know there’s much more that goes into a W or an L than things that are within their control). Allen even noted this week he will not be playing a single down “against” Jackson. But that is just the way it is.
And by that metric, Mahomes is the current king by a country mile.
And it’s not a race thing either, cuz Dak and Hurts get all kinds of grief for similar (and even better) performance, as you’ve noted.
Very amusing to see a Nick Wright tweet atop a column here. But of course Nick *would* be very good at seeing weird biases and opinion herding by other sports media people. Setting up the sports media as a battlefield over things like this is what he's good at, and he's just better at it, because somehow he's positioned this so he gets to look like the smart contrarian while defending the obvious best QB with all the rings. This sort of narrative is old enough to predate modern Sports Yelling TV, but the people who would be assigned the role of claiming Marino was better than Montana or Kelly was better than Aikman or Manning better than Brady at least seemed to know they were on the contrarian side, whereas somehow the side with no Super Bowl rings is supposed to be defended as obviously right now?
The Ryan Clark’s of the world are why we have legacy and narrative debates all year long. It’s so disingenuous to watch when media types reject the discourse they perpetuate
Given how good Lamar Jackson is during the regular season, it should be a sign of respect that he gets criticized for bad performances in the playoffs (as happens seemingly every season now). He should be expected to win during MVP -level seasons: many, many great QBs couldn't get it done in the playoffs for years and were criticized. It's just part of the game. The fumble and that wounded duck pass that were intercepted lost the game. Allen and the Bills are very good but not unbeatable.
Given the conditions and Lamar's struggles in big playoff games, they should have had a better plan to feature Henry with designed runs for Lamar and short, quick passes. Hoping for a Bills - Commanders SB.
I think what's at play here is Lamar's draft class is a culture war a lot of sports media can't move past. Tway a lot of political pundits can't move past 2016.
Baker and Josh had their flaws ignored by one group while that same group questioned if Lamar should even try to be a QB in the NFL. The thing is the pro Lamar crowd has won. I don't think Bill Polian and people like that are even on TV anymore. They're fighting against a narrative that went away years ago already
I’m hoping for an Elwayesque second half to Jackson’s career to make the mirror image of them complete. Both gifted athletes who struggled mightily in the playoffs, and both take the criticism and shoulder the responsibility for their team’s lack of personal success with humility and without throwing anyone else on the team under the bus. What should be talked about more in regards to Jackson is how his passing game, especially in terms of accuracy and going through his progressions, has gotten better every year he’s been in the league, something he has obviously worked hard on. Instead, people fight over whether he’s a winner or not.
I'm just a Detroit Lions fan pleasantly surprised to not see any Lions/Goff chat. That Ravens loss was a heartbreaker too.
I'd like to say I'm sorry for what the Burgundy and Gold did to you on Saturday but... so much trash talk last week I just can't do it. HTTR!
My escape:
Soccer
Music
Wine making
Beer making
Long walks
Jogging
And reading commentaries like yours
This spring 2 weeks in Portugal
Cheers
What wine(s) you have a go at?
Which QB would you think is the most lethal to build a team around? To me, that is Jackson hands down.
However, I would take Mahomes or Allen if the surrounding cast was somewhat randomized.
And to the point of the post, which I accidentally omitted, I don't think he deserves insulation from critique... or actual critique.
Hindsight is simply too easy, and his postseason play doesn't strike me as beyond the roll of the dice and a minor deviation in quality besides. I feel like "critique" would be limited to the unhelpful, descriptive kind. Mostly of the "that, but better" sort.
Is the unspoken subtext here that Lamar has become a symbol of black QBs in a way that Dak and Russell Wilson never did, and that any criticism of Lamar is basically cozying up to the buffoons who called him a running back years ago? It just feels like when you see a cabal of journos unwilling to say what everyone can see, it’s often because there’s some kind of political tribesmanship going on.
It's gotta be - my read is that the writers so aggressively and performatively shielding Jackson from any blame are doing so in opposition to an army of imagined Rush Limbaugh types that just don't exist.
It doesn't make a lot of sense when the guy looking for his 4th ring and 3rd in a row is also a racial minority QB. You would have to stretch it a bit and say Mahomes isn't a true "black QB" because he doesn't play like the old stereotype of one. Warren Moon and Doug Williams also didn't seem to count. The people who were (unlike Rush) smart enough not to say it aloud may have used criticisms of "athletic" QBs as code for "black", it certainly affected the perception of college QBs entering the draft, and with Lamar specifically being asked to work out as a WR at the combine. So if you squint here, you could see a race angle, namely that people want to defend a specific archetype of black QB that was previously damaged by racial assumptions. But that battle too is over, running QBs are ubiquitous, and there's no longer a noticeable draft penalty for being typecast that way.
they do actually exist, they are on sports radio, not the podcasts that Freddie listens to. I promise you the dominant narrative across the country is that Lamar is a choker who can't win in big games because he's an athletic running QB and not a cerebral winner like the past greats. Freddie is reacting to the reaction just like when he says everyone defends the amount of threes being taken in the NBA when in fact the dominant position is that 90s bully ball was the apex of basketball.
I mean... at this point is that not a fair opinion someone could have? Seeing as how he kind of keeps choking?
We're knocking on the door of a quarter century from Rush Limbaugh making asinine comments about Donovan McNabb. Now even the white QBs (including uh... Josh Allen) are expected to be highly mobile.
I agree and as the clip points out so does Lamar Jackson. I really like your football writing. Perhaps you'll post something about this Sunday's games.
Baltimore native here. Everyone here wants to bury Mark Andrews at sea.
I agree there's blame to go around though.
As Vikings fan, you saw this same nonsense with Kirk Cousins. Nothing was ever his fault. They made excuses for him choking and underperforming in prime time games from 2018 until the bitter end in 2023. Like Jackson, on paper, Cousins was one of the greats. Yet, all the Vikings ended up having to show for his six years with the team was one lousy playoff win. I knew Atlanta made a huge mistake giving him that contract. I'd watched too many of his games to think he was worth even half of that money, but his collapse with the Falcons shocked even me.
Darnold absolutely choked both against the Lions and in the Playoffs in a massive way, but no one makes any excuses for him. I enjoyed the ride. He did better than anyone ever expected a $10M QB to do. It's tragic that the Lions loss got into his head, but that's what happened. I guess this kind of disappointment is part and parcel of being a Vikings fan though.....
Football is a game of missed executions. And rampant over-analyisis of those missed executions. It 's really a stupid game. Sorry.
I'm a Cousins apologist from when he was in Washington. I think the problem with him isn't his game (at least prior to this season) it's the bizarre way in which he hit the FA market. Never was close in value to what he was paid in MN and definitely not ATL. But consider the fact that Brock Purdy with the right system, right coach, lost an SB in over time. Prior to his injury I think it was fair to say 'guy you can win with, even if he won't put the team on his back.'
Conversation and at this point expectations with Jackson are IMO totally different. People are waiting for him to drag the Ravens across the line in these no margin for error playoff games against the Chiefs or Bills and he just hasn't been able to do it yet.
I think Peyton is a good comp and like Peyton, Lamar will eventually get his, as he'll get enough playoff reps to eventually be able to handle the heightened environment and/or the breaks will fall in his favor (Like Peyton's last Broncos title where he was almost replacement level.)
The racial angle is a stretch on everyone's part though (including our lovely author.) Can't it just be as simple as people really like Lamar and feel bad for him? (answer: probably not.) Maybe we need to look back at what people were saying about John Elway in 1990.
QBs at that level are judged by rings (even though we all know there’s much more that goes into a W or an L than things that are within their control). Allen even noted this week he will not be playing a single down “against” Jackson. But that is just the way it is.
And by that metric, Mahomes is the current king by a country mile.
And it’s not a race thing either, cuz Dak and Hurts get all kinds of grief for similar (and even better) performance, as you’ve noted.
Very amusing to see a Nick Wright tweet atop a column here. But of course Nick *would* be very good at seeing weird biases and opinion herding by other sports media people. Setting up the sports media as a battlefield over things like this is what he's good at, and he's just better at it, because somehow he's positioned this so he gets to look like the smart contrarian while defending the obvious best QB with all the rings. This sort of narrative is old enough to predate modern Sports Yelling TV, but the people who would be assigned the role of claiming Marino was better than Montana or Kelly was better than Aikman or Manning better than Brady at least seemed to know they were on the contrarian side, whereas somehow the side with no Super Bowl rings is supposed to be defended as obviously right now?
The Ryan Clark’s of the world are why we have legacy and narrative debates all year long. It’s so disingenuous to watch when media types reject the discourse they perpetuate
Curious if others felt like it was not a very interesting/compelling game despite the tight score?
Given how good Lamar Jackson is during the regular season, it should be a sign of respect that he gets criticized for bad performances in the playoffs (as happens seemingly every season now). He should be expected to win during MVP -level seasons: many, many great QBs couldn't get it done in the playoffs for years and were criticized. It's just part of the game. The fumble and that wounded duck pass that were intercepted lost the game. Allen and the Bills are very good but not unbeatable.
Given the conditions and Lamar's struggles in big playoff games, they should have had a better plan to feature Henry with designed runs for Lamar and short, quick passes. Hoping for a Bills - Commanders SB.
So you are saying Jackson should be more of a "take care of the ball, game manager" like Jared Goff?
I think what's at play here is Lamar's draft class is a culture war a lot of sports media can't move past. Tway a lot of political pundits can't move past 2016.
Baker and Josh had their flaws ignored by one group while that same group questioned if Lamar should even try to be a QB in the NFL. The thing is the pro Lamar crowd has won. I don't think Bill Polian and people like that are even on TV anymore. They're fighting against a narrative that went away years ago already
I’m hoping for an Elwayesque second half to Jackson’s career to make the mirror image of them complete. Both gifted athletes who struggled mightily in the playoffs, and both take the criticism and shoulder the responsibility for their team’s lack of personal success with humility and without throwing anyone else on the team under the bus. What should be talked about more in regards to Jackson is how his passing game, especially in terms of accuracy and going through his progressions, has gotten better every year he’s been in the league, something he has obviously worked hard on. Instead, people fight over whether he’s a winner or not.