The 2023 MVP race ended on New Year’s Eve in Baltimore with seven days left in the regular season. Depending on what John Harbaugh decides to do, Week 17 also might be the last we see of Lamar Jackson until the third weekend in January when the divisional round of the AFC playoffs commence—not that voters should need to see anything else.
The Baltimore Ravens’ 56–19 bludgeoning of the playoff-bound Miami Dolphins put a stamp on all of that.
Jackson essentially locking up his second MVP award a week shy of his 27th birthday is impressive in its own right. He’ll be the 11th player to win multiple MVPs—seven of the other 10 are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame—and the three that aren’t are Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes. Jackson will also be the same age as Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Mahomes when they won their second—Jim Brown won his second at 22.
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Which is all great. But maybe just as impressive is how this award will have been won in a significantly different way than how Jackson won his first.
The really cool part for the 26-year-old phenom? Sunday’s deconstruction of Jackson’s hometown Dolphins might best be remembered by most for something someone else did, and on a play that was consequential to the Ravens running away with this one.
You know it for what Odell Beckham Jr. did. It was at the midpoint of the second quarter, and the Ravens were down 10–7. On second-and-8 from the Miami 34, Beckham made a catch along the right sideline for a 33-yard gain that looked like the two-handed cousin of the iconic one-hander he pulled off nine years ago as a Giants rookie. The play put Baltimore at the 1-yard line and in position to take a lead it’d never give back.
What you don’t know is what happened before that snap.
“I’d seen man coverage, and I love O.B. versus anyone one-on-one—I love any one of my receivers one-on-one with anybody,” Jackson told me, calling from the tunnel inside M&T Bank Stadium. “I’d seen No. 4 [Kader Kohou] guarding him, and I just checked to a different route. O.B. just did what O.B. do—made a tremendous catch, got his feet down inbounds. It was wonderful. O.B. did all of that. I just had to give him a chance.”
Jackson was, of course, humbly passing off credit. But as our conversation continued, it became more and more clear that the play was as much a sign of a young quarterback’s growth, and his team’s undying trust in him to put that growth on the field, as it was another guy’s brilliance.
It was also a perfect example, again, on how the 2023 MVP is different from the 2019 MVP.
We’ve got 16 games left in the 2023 regular season, so we have a lot to get to before Week 18, including in the Ten Takeaways …
• The silver lining in the San Francisco 49ers losing to the Ravens.
• More on the Russell Wilson saga with the Denver Broncos.
• Players to watch, draft-wise, in today’s College Football Playoff.
But we’re starting here with the soon-to-be two-time MVP.
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The numbers don’t tell the full story on Jackson’s growth over the past four years, but they can get you at least part of the way there.
In 2019, Jackson rushed for 1,206 yards and seven touchdowns, setting career highs that still stand in both of those categories, plus rush attempts (176) and yards per carry (6.9). That served as the foundation of the offense then-first-year coordinator Greg Roman built—with everything coming off a complex run game that was difficult for opponents to deal with in the way playing a service academy is tough for a college team.
The challenge in defending the 2023 Ravens is different from Roman’s offense, and reflective of where this 26-year-old version of the team’s quarterback is different from the 22-year-old point man for the ’19 attack. Yes, the bones of the run game remain.
But this year, Jackson had his fewest rush attempts per game (9.25), yards per game (51.3), and yards per carry (5.5) since becoming the Ravens’ full-time starter.
And it’s not that he can’t run the way he used to. It’s mostly that he doesn’t have to because of how he’s grown and the talent around him. Which brings us back to that throw Sunday to Beckham, and what it represented to Jackson, beginning with the steps he’s taken, and continues to take, as a quarterback.
“It’s having an opportunity to make things happen at the line—checking out of things,” Jackson says. “When I’m seeing certain defenses on film, I’m checking out of plays and putting us in better situations. In the past, I don’t think I was able to do it. Now, I’m able to do it. It’s helping us out a lot.”
In this case, it certainly did, and that takes you to the other part of this, which involves the new guys around Beckham—and that, of course, goes beyond just the players. It’s also Harbaugh hiring Todd Monken to replace Roman as offensive coordinator.
Monken has, to be sure, evolved the passing game since arriving in January. He’s done it schematically, and he’s also done it by empowering Jackson.
“It’s giving me the free will to put us in better situations,” Jackson says. “He already told me, If you don’t like it, check out of it. But if you mess it up, it’s on you. Everybody is going to know it’s on you. It’s him giving me that freedom …”
It’s a responsibility Jackson has embraced, and one he’s been able to use to the Ravens’ benefit to the point where routs such as Sunday’s have become a habit for this Baltimore group.
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The Beckham catch wasn’t the only example from Sunday of how Jackson has blossomed into a different, better, more-difficult-to-defend quarterback.
There was another play on the team’s next possession—when Monken was able to scheme rookie Zay Flowers open off jet motion—and Jackson saw it fast enough to throw into a hole in the Miami coverage to push the Ravens’ lead to 21–13.
“The crazy thing about that, we never get that in practice,” Jackson says. “We watched film on those guys. We weren’t expecting Zay to fly open, but it was pretty much a blown coverage. And Zay just kept running. I just had to deliver him a strike.”
Then, less than two minutes later after a Roquan Smith one-handed interception put the Ravens at the Miami 38, Harbaugh and Monken again put the game in their quarterback’s hands on fourth-and-7 at the 35. In that spot, the coaches let Jackson throw them, not run them, out of a jam.
Facing a blitz from Miami DC Vic Fangio, Jackson knew exactly how to respond.
“It was zero man coverage,” he says. “I pretty much just watched film on those guys, knew when they were throwing zero at me. In that situation, they got the guys on defense to do it. They believe their guys will get there before I get the ball out. Our line did a tremendous job. I dropped back, [Isaiah] Likely was flying across the field. I just had to deliver him a pass that he could catch, and that’s what it was.
“He made a one-hander, tremendous catch, and then he was off to the races.”
Likely isn’t new like Beckham and Flowers. As a second-year tight end, his role became much bigger this year after three-time Pro Bowl tight end Mark Andrews went down in Week 11.
And that’s another sign of where Jackson is as a player. He’s been able to elevate all of these guys, new and old. It was apparent on the throws to Beckham and Flowers and Likely—and again on Jackson’s fifth and final touchdown throw of the game. That one was to Jackson’s 300-pound fullback Pat Ricard, who made a one-handed grab, to put the Ravens up 42–13. It provided almost a dam-breaking moment for the Miami defense, as if it was saying to the quarterback, You’re gonna make us cover that dude, too?
“I threw him a pass like that in practice,” Jackson says, laughing. “Pat Ricard, he can do it all. He’s a blocker, a tight end, a running back, whatever you want to call him—a defensive lineman in his former position. I just had to give him a shot. I believed he was going to make the catch.”
Ricard did, over his shoulder, to complete the picture on this perfect Sunday for Baltimore.
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So given how far he’s come, and with the Ravens locking down home-filed advantage throughout the playoffs, would Jackson declare himself the MVP?
“If that’s what the voters say, I’ll run with it,” Jackson says. “My goal is the Super Bowl. I’m going to be grateful for it, if I do receive it. That’ll be the second one. I’ll be grateful. I’m chasing something else.”
In his sixth year as a pro, Jackson knows he has a good opportunity to get to Las Vegas.
That starts with what’s around him, from the scheme he’s running, to a strong, physical line, and a wealth of skill-position talent that’s been deep enough to overcome season-ending injuries to Andrews and J.K. Dobbins.
“I have a bunch of dogs on my side,” Beckham says. “I’m grateful for this opportunity to be with those guys. Likely, O.B., guys who are stepping up. We talk about what we’re chasing.
“Our guys just go out there and attack. That’s the first thing about being a Raven is just attack.”
And Jackson can attack on so many different fronts.
His personal road here hasn’t come without bumps. There was the contract negotiation that dragged out over three offseasons. There was finishing the past two seasons injured—he missed the final four games of 2021, the final five games of ’22, and Baltimore went 2–7 in those games.
But as Jackson sees it now, it’s been worth it, and made him more appreciative of a year like this one.
“I just thank God because the last two seasons, like you said, I wasn’t able to go out there, help my team and compete with my guys,” he says. “God protected me, protected my teammates, for me to be able to go out there, finish the game, finish the season in the right direction, and come out with no injuries whatsoever.”
Of course, the big opportunity is the one still in front of him, and his Ravens.
Which is why, when I asked him the real big-picture question—whether this is the best team he’s played on—he wouldn’t answer. Baltimore hasn’t been to a conference title game, let alone a Super Bowl, since winning it all in 2012. Jackson was a sophomore in high school for that one. So he’ll wait on making any declaration.
“Hard to tell right now,” he says. “Games are going on right now, so we just need to stay dialed in and locked in. I’ll probably have something for you in February.”
We know now that he’ll be taking home at least one trophy that month. And as for the one he really wants, well, after Sunday, things are looking pretty good on that front, too.
