Lamar Jackson was incredible on Monday Night Football and it's looking more and more likely that he'll capture his third MVP award. He might, as Colin Cowherd suggests below, be the best football player on the planet. But it doesn't really matter until he proves he can lead the Baltimore Ravens on a meaningful playoff run. And even then his place in the court of public opinion won't change much because he will still be, as he is now, known as someone who can't "win the big one."
So he has no choice but to hear pundit after pundit make this point over and over again until he gets another chance to change the conversation in January. Which can't feel great, especially when he's being lumped into the James Harden-Joel Embiid category by Nick Wright.
.@getnickwright says Lamar Jackson is "no different" than prime James Harden and Joel Embiid:
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) October 22, 2024
"1st Ballot Hall of Famer, unreliable in the biggest spots of the year." pic.twitter.com/3ZBsPb7pTZ
"Lamar is not only the best player, he is the best quarterback in the league most years in October and November," Wright said, "and then Mahomes takes it over for January and February... He is a brilliant, all-time great, transcendent regular-season player who every single year has his worst moment of the season in the playoff game."
"He is no different than prime James Harden or current Joel Embiid," the FS1 pundit continued. "First-ballot Hall of Famer, night to night in the regular season arguably the best player in the league. And wholly and entirely unreliable in the biggest spots of the year until proven otherwise."
Wright said he wasn't picking on Jackson but treating him the same way Dak Prescott gets treated, which is the same as any big-time player.
In reality, this is basically the conversation that matters. There are a lot of things wrong with rings culture but no one can deny that rings are sort of the whole point of playing sports.
Wright isn't necessarily wrong, though Jackson has been readily available than Embiid for his entire career and clearly more committed to the entire enterprise than Harden. It has to be a bummer to put up masterpiece after masterpiece to put the Ravens in a position to accomplish their ultimate goal only to hear that, once again, they're going to likely fall short of it.
There's one neat trick Jackson can do to change all that and it includes vanquishing Mahomes just once in the knockout round and hoisting the Lombardi. It's an incredibly high bar but considering that he's cleared almost every other one, the standard has to be golden.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Nick Wright Says Lamar Jackson 'No Different' Than James Harden and Joel Embiid.
