The Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson played…not great last night. Fortunately for them, he didn’t have to, in no small part because the Cleveland Browns’ Baker Mayfield was no better. Baltimore wound up on top, 16-10, but Jackson struggled to protect the ball, throwing a career-high four interceptions, including three in the second quarter on consecutive drives.
“I’m hot, though”, Jackson said of his performance, as in, he’s angry at himself. “I threw four interceptions, three in the first half. I feel like those drives, when the interceptions came, we could’ve done something on those drives. We could’ve put points on the board. I just told my team, ‘that’s me. I owe y’all’”.
Truth be told, the offense did very little on those drives. The three combined for 24 net yards and two first downs across just seven plays. But they did score on the two previous drives, including a 17-play, 64-yard affair spanning nearly nine minutes that took up the majority of the quarter just before that—only to end in a field goal.
Jackson added another interception on the Ravens’ first possession of the fourth quarter, ending a drive that lasted only a few minutes, spanning 22 yards on five plays. It was the first time in his career that he had thrown four or more interceptions, and the first time he has 10 or more in a single season, throwing eight in 2020 and nine in 2019.
Twenty-eight players have thrown four or more interceptions over the course of the past five seasons. Jackson is the only one to win the game. He is the first to win in such a performance since Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks managed it back in 2015, 41 four-pick games league-wide ago. There have been just 13 wins out of 208 games since 2000 in which a quarterback has thrown four or more interceptions.
It is, however, his fourth multi-interception game of the 2021 season, and that should not be a great shock, because he is also throwing the football significantly more. He is averaging about 35 pass attempts per game this year, after averaging about 25 in 2020, and under 27 the year before that. His interception ratio, at least before last night, was more or less in line with his numbers last year. Now, though….well, they’re a bit higher.
More notably, he only has 15 touchdown passes this year in 10 games. And he only has two rushing touchdowns, so it’s not like he’s getting into the end zone routinely on his own. The Ravens are only in the middle of the pack in scoring offense.
And their defense is as well in terms of points allowed. But they stifled the Browns, in a game in which, for some reason, Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt combined for just 15 carries for 36 yards, which is frankly baffling. There weren’t a ton of plays run, but they had 37 pass attempts to 17 total rushing attempts as a team, and that’s totally out of whack with what Cleveland has done in the past season-plus when they have done well.
