The timing of the Baltimore Ravens’ Thursday Night game in 2019 couldn’t have been more ill-timed. As you might guess, they play tomorrow night. And this is the one time, for the first game in his career, in which quarterback Lamar Jackson is dealing with an injury, even though he has said that he will play.
Jackson, the second-year quarterback who on Sunday just became the second quarterback in NFL history to rush for 1000 yards in a single season, already has 151 rushing attempts on the year. And a large percentage of them are designed runs, rather than scrambles. It’s an integral part of their offense.
At some point, on one of those runs on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills, Jackson took a shot to the quad. He has been limited in practice the past two days in advance of their road game tomorrow night against the New York Jets.
Whom they can probably beat with Trace McSorley if we’re being honest.
Following a limited practice yesterday, Jackson declared himself 100 percent, which of course he’s not, otherwise he would have had no reason not to participate fully. “I’m going to be out there Thursday night”.
Teammate Earl Thomas thinks there are those who don’t want to see him out there. “I’m not saying they’re trying to hurt Lamar”, he admitted, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN, “but they’re definitely going at his legs more than they were doing at first”. I don’t know what sort of evidence he’s using to back this up.
Jackson had the least productive rushing performance of the season outside of the opener, in which he rushed for just six yards, against the Bills, limited to 40 yards on 11 attempts. Outside of one other game, he never had fewer than 60 rushing yards.
It’s also noteworthy that he has been held to under 200 yards passing in each of the past three games, and under six yards per attempt in the past two. But he’s still thrown nine touchdown passes in that span to one interception (on Sunday, his first since Week Five against the Pittsburgh Steelers eight games ago).
“I don’t know” if players are coming after him, Jackson told Hensley. “We’re playing football. It’s an aggressive game. They’re trying to make a tackle and I’m trying to make them miss”.
On the season, Jackson has completed 230 of 347 pass attempts (66.3 percent) for 2677 yards (7.7 yards per attempt). He has thrown a league-leading 28 touchdown passes, however, with just six interceptions.
