While the Pittsburgh Steelers are excited about the fact that they were able to get just their second victory of the season last night in a win over the Los Angeles Chargers, the reality is that they did not make any headway relative to their positioning in the AFC North versus the Baltimore Ravens.
They came into the day two games behind the Ravens after falling to them in overtime last week, and they closed the day in the same position, since Baltimore also emerged victorious in a comfortable victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, who are now 0-6 on the season in their first year under Zac Taylor.
A lot of that had to do with second-year quarterback Lamar Jackson, in their 23-17 victory. He threw for 236 passes, but he also rushed for a career-high 152 yards. That number puts him in some very exclusive company in NFL history in terms of rushing yards from the quarterback position.
Including the postseason, according to Pro Football Reference, it was just the sixth occurrence in NFL history in which a player who was primarily a quarterback recorded at least 150 rushing yards in a single game.
The feat was most recently accomplished by Colin Kaepernick, who also owns the all-time quarterback record for the most rushing yards in a game by a quarterback. In December of 2014, he rushed for 151 yards against the Chargers, albeit in a losing effort.
Kaepernick also rushed for 181 yards in a 45-31 postseason victory against the Green Bay Packers back during the 2012 season. In doing so, he broke Michael Vick’s 173-yard rushing record that he set at the end of the 2001 season. Vick also rushed for 166 yards in a game in 2006.
The only other occurrence since 1950 that Pro Football Reference logs is a performance by Tobin Rote in 1951 in which he rushed for 150 yards. Rote completed just 10 of 33 passes for 88 yards with one passing touchdown and two interceptions, but had 150 rushing yards on 14 carries with a long of 32 yards. A full-time quarterback, he still rushed for over 3000 yards during a lengthy career.
On the season, Jackson is now 127-for-195 as a passer, completing 65.1 percent of his passes for 1507 yards. He has 11 touchdown passes to five interceptions, but he didn’t throw either one in yesterday’s game. He did have a rushing touchdown among his 19 rushes.
Speaking of rushes, he now has 69 rushing attempts on the season, with 33 of them coming in just the past two weeks. He has 460 rushing yards with two touchdowns, and has topped 100 yards in a single game twice on the year already.
