It’s hard to enter Week 16 against Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens with too much optimism after what Jalen Hurts managed to do to the Pittsburgh Steelers a week ago. Jackson is a better version of Hurts in a lot of ways, so what does that mean for Saturday’s game?
“I saw Jalen Hurts completely dismantle that Pittsburgh Steelers defense,” Chase Daniel said via FS1’s The Facility. “Lamar Jackson, you are levels, in my opinion, above Jalen Hurts as a quarterback. So you’re telling me you can’t go and steal some plays and go do this against them?
“I probably wouldn’t have been so trustworthy of Lamar if Jalen didn’t show me the blueprint to beat the Steelers.”
Hurts completed 78.1 percent of his passes against the Steelers for 290 yards and two touchdowns. He also rushed the ball 15 times for 45 yards and a touchdown. His three yards per carry is a little misleading as they did the Tush Push four times.
Jackson has won the MVP award twice and would probably win it again this year if Josh Allen wasn’t having a transcendent year in his own right. We know Jackson is capable of doing what Hurts accomplished and more.
Here are some reasons why it might not be so easy for Jackson to replicate Hurts’ performance. For one, the Eagles generated eight explosive plays against the Steelers and a handful more that fell just short of the “explosive play” threshold. Entering Week 15, the Steelers had allowed 90 explosive plays, which was near the top of the league in limiting big gains. The Eagles game was more of an anomaly.
Another anomaly was how bad the Steelers’ tackling was. They had the fewest missed tackles in the league for a good portion of the season before tallying 20 against the Eagles. That is almost double the next highest of the season.
I’m not sure Jackson will be able to replicate Hurts’ performance for these reasons.
The Ravens may also be lacking firepower in their passing game. The Eagles had A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. The Ravens have already ruled out Nelson Agholor and might be without Rashod Bateman as well. It’s going to be tough to mimic Hurts’ explosive passing game without some of their top receivers healthy and available.
The Steelers have faced plenty of mobile quarterbacks this season, and for the most part they’ve bottled them up. Jackson had one of his worst games this season against them in Week 11, and Jayden Daniels was not allowed to be a dual threat as the Steelers prevented him from running.
I get what Daniel was trying to say with Jackson being able to put up a better performance than Hurts because, on paper, Jackson is better in almost every way. But a lot of things went wrong for the Steelers’ defense to put on that uncharacteristic performance. I don’t think it’s going to be so easy to replicate this week.
