On Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson became the second quarterback to ever rush for 6,000 yards in a career. Against the Pittsburgh Steelers, he could break Mike Vick’s NFL all-time quarterback rushing record. While it would take a big day on the ground, Jackson is more than capable of doing it, and may be motivated to do so.
Historically, Jackson has been hesitant to run too much when playing the Steelers. Even his mother, though, says that he needs to run more. Against the Steelers, he only rushed four times, though he did pick up 46 yards. The bulk of that came on one 25-yard scramble.
On the season, Jackson has 743 rushing yards for the Ravens on 117 attempts, with three touchdowns. He leads the NFL with 6.3 yards per carry, the fourth time in his career he has led in that statistic. Entering Saturday’s game against the Steelers, he sits at 6,001 career rushing yards after a 65-yard game.
Mike Vick has 6,109 rushing yards, however, so in order to pass him, Lamar Jackson would need to rush for 109 yards. He has 14 100-yard rushing games in his career, including eight with at least 109 yards. While he has only cracked 100 yards once in 2024, he put up 122 in the season opener against the Chiefs.
In five career starts against the Steelers, Jackson has rushed for 281 yards, averaging 56.2 rushing yards per game. His rushing numbers have trended in the wrong direction, however. He rushed for 70 yards in his first start against the Steelers, then 65, 55, 45, and 46.
In the modern era, the Steelers have only allowed one quarterback to rush for 100-plus yards. Chances are you remember that well. It was Terrelle Pryor, who rushed for 106 yards against the Steelers in 2013. That was thanks in very large part to a 93-yard touchdown. In other words, even Lamar Jackson has his work cut out for him.
But the Ravens do have three more games to play, and he only needs 109 more yards. While Jackson may not break the quarterback rushing record against the Steelers, he is bound to do it at some point this season. He needs only to average 37 yards per game over the final three weeks to break the record.
And he has rushed for at least that much 77 times in his career. He has only rushed for less than that in 15 of his 91 career starts.
Of course, Mike Vick lost two years of his career because of his despicable abuse of animals, so he could have set his record a fair bit higher otherwise. But he took 12 years to get to 6,000. Lamar Jackson is already there in his seventh season and could pass Vick against the Steelers.
