The Endless, Perplexing Controversies Over (How We Talk About) Lamar Jackson
and why the hell does Dak Prescott catch so much more heat?
This past weekend, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson played an uncharacteristically poor game in a loss to the division rival Steelers, who won despite being unable to score a touchdown. The Steelers now lead in the AFC North, although they’ll meet again in Baltimore later in the year. The loss was one of the only blemishes on what’s been another remarkable season for Jackson, one of the league’s biggest stars.
Awhile back, I wrote a piece about Jackson and how he’s perceived in the media; as I said then, I think Jackson is a fantastic player who has nonetheless been discussed by many members of the media in a weirdly defensive way. For much of his career, Jackson has been an A-plus level rusher and a B-plus level passer, which has averaged out to being an A quarterback. He was absolutely deserving of the MVP that he won in 2019 and has, in general, been a top-five QB throughout his career. But people have also insisted that he’s every bit the passer of the football that a Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow is, and I’ve argued that that hasn’t actually been true - although it’s been much more true this year, when he’s once again been the MVP frontrunner. In that older piece I mentioned that Jackson had been the recipient of some really stupid criticism during the draft process, criticism which absolutely had a racial dimension; Jackson was derided as unable to read a defense, not “cerebral,” told that he should switch to wide receiver, etc. These all have racist valences; the idea that Black athletes are just natural athletes who can’t play “the thinking-man’s position” is old and ugly. My point, back then, was just that Jackson’s actual incandescent career is more than good enough, and you don’t need to exaggerate to recognize that fact.
Now, in the midst of what might end up being his best season, there’s another layer to this that I find weird. Since sports talk doesn’t really happen in landmark essays but rather in chatter on social media and podcasts and YouTube videos, I can’t really precisely establish how common this tendency is. But I’ve personally found, in my experience, that a lot of people are very sensitive to a basic point about Jackson: that he’s been a dramatically worse performer in the playoffs than in the regular season. It’s common to hear, when it comes to quarterbacks who haven’t won it all, that it doesn’t matter until they do it in the postseason; Jackson joins other quarterbacks like Josh Allen and Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts in suffering, reputation-wise, from never having won a Super Bowl. And yet I find that to a degree that’s simply not true with most quarterbacks, this perception about Jackson engenders a lot of outrage. Ravens fans are bizarrely defensive in general, but I don’t blame them from protecting their guy, which is just what fans do. I am however a little mystified by how many people in the media seem to have the exact same defensiveness. Here’s an (AI-generated) summation from Twitter’s trending topics section:
The MVP discussion in the NFL has spotlighted quarterbacks Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, with Jackson leading in categories like completion percentage, passing yards, and passer rating. However, his performance has come under scrutiny, particularly after a game where his play was not up to his usual standards, sparking debate. Critics, notably ESPN's Chris 'Mad Dog' Russo, have voiced controversial opinions on Jackson's MVP credentials, leading to discussions about bias and the standards to which Jackson is held. Supporters highlight that while his errors are magnified, his consistent excellence, as evidenced by his development into one of the NFL's top passers, often goes underappreciated. This narrative delves into how quarterback performances are critiqued, touching on themes of respect, media portrayal, and the criteria for NFL accolades.
This is the kind of thing I’m talking about, an odd double standard for an excellent quarterback who is perfectly capable of taking some criticism. And it’s particularly strange to me given that Jackson has legitimately played poorly in the postseason. How has he performed in the playoffs in his career? Eep:
EPA is widely considered one of the best advanced stats for evaluating a quarterback’s stats. The X-axis tells you what percentage of a QB’s dropbacks (ie passing plays) ended in interceptions or sacks, which are bad. As you can see, in the 21st during the playoffs Jackson is one of the two or three worst in EPA and the very worst in terms of the most negative plays. He’s been very bad! And again, I kind of wince to say that because the entire football-watching community seems to hold a bizarre anger for anyone who points that fact out. I feel like, if you were to say to the average NFL fan “Lamar Jackson has been a significantly worse playoff QB than Philip Rivers was,” they’d howl in outrage. But it’s true! Look, it’s obviously not the case that Jackson’s legacy has already been defined. People forget that John Elway’s reputation was as a phenomenal athlete who couldn’t put it together and win the big game, a choker; he won his two Super Bowls at 37 and 38 years old and bye bye narrative. All of these guys have a chance until they retire. And, to state the painfully obvious, there’s 52 other guys on an NFL roster who contribute, as well as an entire coaching staff. Still, that quarterbacks are defined by their current level of playoff success has been true for a long time.
There’s no unique shame on Lamar Jackson for his lack of success in the postseason. But it is true that he’s in his eighth season and has two playoff wins, which is as many as career journeyman Gardner Minshew and fewer than longtime backup Marcus Mariota. And whether it fully makes sense to judge quarterbacks by their playoff records or not - I mean, it doesn’t - people just do, with all sorts of quarterbacks. That’s true in pretty much all sports and there’s no sense in trying to protect someone who’s as accomplished as Jackson from it.
It’s tempting to think that the same dynamic I suggested in the prior post is at play here, that the undeniable racial element of past criticism of Jackson has prompted an understandable defensiveness towards him. And, again, that would be an understandable impulse, given the history. The problem there is that there are of course other Black quarterbacks who get plenty of criticism for not winning in the playoffs, with another excellent QB coming immediately to mind: Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys. I will preface this by saying that I hate the Cowboys, as all decent people do, and have no rooting interest here at all. But Prescott (now out for the season with an injury) has been in the league one year longer than Jackson and, with a 2-5 playoff record, has one more loss in one more playoff game than Jackson at 2-4. In terms of performance, Jackson has about a 75 career quarterback rating in the playoffs, while Prescott is currently at 92. Of course, quarterback rating doesn’t capture running value, and Jackson has averaged 88 yards rushing a game in the postseason, Prescott less than 25 a game. But the result has been the same; they’ve both underperformed in the playoffs, when it really matters. Put it this way: Dak’s Cowboys have given up 30 points or more on defense in three of his seven playoff games. Jackson’s Ravens have never given up 30 in a playoff game when he’s started. Just can’t tell me that Dak has been markedly more disappointing, given the record.
And yet, man, Prescott catches a lot more heat. He’s been a punching bag for almost his entire career as the starter in Dallas, winning a ton of games, putting up great stats, but consistently failing when it matters most. You’d think that he was doing less with more, but I wouldn’t say that the Cowboys have had better rosters than the Ravens. (If you want to do the work of figuring out which QB has had more Pro Bowlers on his team, go for it.) And, look, I get that this is partially a Cowboys effect; when you’re America’s Team you take extra criticism. I enjoy participating in that criticism myself. But Prescott’s rough treatment and reputation as a disappointment, for me, really stands in contrast to a broad tendency to make excuses for Lamar Jackson. That’s just my impression, but I think a lot of other people have noticed the same thing. For the record: I would have voted for Prescott for MVP last year. I would however vote for Jackson this year, although Jared Goff is making a real case.
Again, I acknowledge that to define quarterbacks by wins and losses is to participate in irrationality, to some degree. Yes, “wins are not a quarterback stat.” But also? That’s the name of the game. In their desire to be endlessly counterintuitive, analytics people are demanding that human beings abandon one of our most elementary ways of understanding the world - judging decisions by their outcomes. Over a long enough timeframe, there’s no other way to evaluate anything. If sports didn’t end in championship games that have binary outcomes, maybe you could live forever without using those outcomes to evaluate coaches and players, but they do. I’m frequently annoyed when Billy Beane apologists wave away his lack of championships with the As because the structure of the baseball playoffs heightens the role of variability and chance and he can’t control that blah blah blah. That’s the sport! That’s the system! It’s been the system for longer than any of us have been alive. Was Billy Beane unaware that the purpose of baseball is to win the World Series? Is Lamar Jackson unaware that the purpose of football is to win the Super Bowl? If you can give anyone any credit for putting together a championship team, you have to be able to criticize those who don’t. Of course no one player is solely responsible for his team’s success. But a quarterback has more influence on success or failure than any other position in all of team sports, and they’re evaluated with that understanding.
Of course, the way for Jackson - or Prescott, or Allen, or Burrow, or anybody else - to silence all doubters is blissfully simple: win a Super Bowl. The rub is, I’m certain that Jackson would tell you the exact same thing, that if he’s going to become a first-level NFL legend he has to win championships. I have no doubt that he feels himself that he needs to perform in the postseason to take that next step into all-time great quarterback status. That’s true for anybody! Trying to shield Jackson from that reality seems extremely condescending to me. If he wants to make his regular-season greatness pay off, he’s got to get it done in the playoffs. That’s football, that’s sports.
I'm just here to annoyingly point out that Jalen Hurts has in fact made a Super Bowl.
I think the awkward answer is that Lamar often presents as slow-witted and confused. That's not to say that he is -- his stellar performance over the years in one of the most demanding and cerebral positions in sports demonstrates quite the opposite. But you often see him with furrowed brow, looking down or staring blankly into mid-space in the pose of someone uncomfortably searching for a clue. He doesn't express himself artfully or with a quick wit in interviews, as Mahomes does. So he comes off as someone with more brawns than brains.
That is, of course, uncomfortably close to the old trope that Freddie mentions of the gifted but not intelligent black athlete that, frankly, at least 90% of us have gotten beyond long ago. Even though we are past it, we all remain uncomfortably aware of it, so anything that remotely, remotely smells of it, such as justifiable criticism of Lamar's playoff record, makes us uneasy. For me, Lamar's presentation is actually refreshing -- I'm pretty sick of the opposite -- the countless media-trained talking heads who present as smart, witty and glib as they sound bite the day's conventional wisdom and prove to have little ability for self-reflection and analysis.