Throughout NFL history, no quarterback has ever thrown for more than 3,000 yards and run for more than 1,000 yards in the same season. A few have come close — Randall Cunningham threw for 3,466 yards and ran for 942 yards for the Eagles in 1990. Russell Wilson threw for 3,475 yards and ran for 849 yards for the Seahawks in 2014. Robert Griffin III threw for 3,200 yards and ran for 815 yards for the Redskins in 2012. Cam Newton has thrown for more than 3,300 yards and rushed for more than 700 yards in three different seasons (2011, 2012, 2017). The closest Michael Vick ever came was 2006, when he threw for 2,474 yards and became the only quarterback in NFL history to run for more than 1,000 yards in a season (1,039).
Why is this important? Because Lamar Jackson, Baltimore’s second-year quarterback, is on pace to become the first to actually pull it off — and by a fairly crushing margin. Through the first seven games of the season, Jackson has thrown for 1,650 yards and run for 576. At this pace, he’ll end the season with 3,771 passing yards and 1,317 rushing yards. Jackson would not only set a new standard for the modern mobile quarterback; he’d leave everybody else in the dust as much as he does on the field. We have not seen a quarterback like this before.
The running is nice, of course. In Baltimore’s 30-16 Sunday win over the Seahawks in Seattle, Jackson absolutely torched Pete Carroll’s defense on the ground, and he did it in the most demoralizing way. Jackson ran 14 times for 116 yards and a touchdown, and everybody in the stadium knew it was coming.
“This is a game that really calls for great discipline,” Carroll said last Wednesday. “To play the running game and defense, it’s always discipline first. You think it’s just being hard, tough and physical. We like that, too, but that’s just part of it. You’ve got to do things right. This offense, more than any offense that we’ll face, will demand that we have to do right. That means you’ve got to gap-control stuff. The way we scrape. The way we fill and thin our run plays. They tax you to the maximum. It’s all about being really tuned in and being really focused. Every single play you have to do right, or the ball will break. It’s a great challenge. It’s exciting for us to try to figure it out and see if we can do it.”
Maybe not. The Ravens have one of the most effective and diverse running games in the NFL, designed by offensive coordinator Greg Roman. Roman was the guy in charge of San Francisco’s offense in the Colin Kaepernick era, and there are similarities between the two overall concepts. Both the 49ers then and the Ravens now rely on different blocking schemes, backfield motion and sleight of hand, as well as the abilities of their quarterbacks to exploit broken plays with their ability to run extemporaneously outside of structure. Both offenses penalize defenses heavily for playing a lot of man coverage, because when you play man, you have to turn your head to the receiver, and that’s all quarterbacks such as Kaepernick and Jackson need to blast through an unwatched opening for big gains. There are also designed run plays for the quarterback, and we’ll get to that in a minute.
The difference between Kaepernick and Jackson is that while Kaepernick was a quick and highly effective runner, Jackson has an extra gear. He’s the most electric runner at the position since Vick in his prime. The focus on Jackson as a runner also opens things up for the Ravens’ actual running backs. There should be no mystery as to why Baltimore leads the league with 1,429 rushing yards and 5.5 yards per carry, and ranks first in Football Outsiders’ rushing DVOA metric.
All well and good, and heck — I was in the press box when Jackson put Seattle’s defense on tilt, and I could watch the highlights all day. But the old adage that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth is more true for the running quarterback than for just about any other kind of athlete. Ask Robert Griffin III about that, before and after Haloti Ngata landed on him in 2013 and put Griffin’s wheels in the garage for the rest of his career. Ask Wilson, who is throwing the ball at an MVP pace and hasn’t rushed for 600 yards in a season since that 2014 campaign. Ask Vick, who looked to be the potential next-level guy Jackson now is until federal dogfighting charges put him in prison for 21 months and shaved two full seasons off his NFL career. When he returned to the league, Vick underwent a graduate class in passing with the Eagles, and had a few moments where it all came together. Ask Randall Cunningham, who took that same kind of class with the Vikings late in his career and had a few similar moments.
Jackson isn’t quite there yet, but his development as a quarterback has been encouraging, and his passing stats against the Seahawks are misleading. He completed nine of 20 passes for 143 yards, but his receivers dropped five passes, and tight end Mark Andrews was a prime offender in that regard. On the season, Jackson has completed 63.3% of his passes for 11 touchdowns and five interceptions, and he did start the season with a perfect 158.3 passer rating — though it came against the Dolphins.
Still, there are those who insist that Jackson is a runner with a barely adjunct passing skill set. It happened before the Ravens selected him with the 32nd overall pick in the 2018 draft, and it’s happening now. Then, it was former NFL general manager Bill Polian suggesting that Jackson should switch to receiver. Now, it’s things like this, from Pat McManamon of The Athletic.
Do any of us really believe that Lamar Jackson is a better pocket passer than Baker Mayfield? He’s not. So the Ravens have designed a misdirection, read-option offense that allows Jackson to use his running ability and doesn’t ask him to do too much when he has to throw.
Well, about that. With no pressure this season, per Pro Football Focus, Jackson has completed 67.1% of his passes for 1,292 yards, eight touchdowns and four interceptions. Mayfield under similar conditions has completed 64.8% of his passes for 1,210 yards, four touchdowns and eight interceptions. Jackson also has been the far better second-year quarterback under pressure, when using play action and when asked to complete passes at least 20 yards downfield. Stereotypes die hard sometimes, but those who have had to deal with Jackson on the field tell a different story.
“A lot of people don’t respect his ability to throw the ball, and he’s a really good thrower,” Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner concluded after the game. “Combine that with his ability to run the ball, and that makes it really tough because you come up on him and he throws it over your head. And if you stay back, he takes off. It makes you be very disciplined, and he did a good job calling his number today.”
Again, Jackson had five dropped passes on his 20 attempts. And he still did enough in the passing game to keep his team in it, led by this phenomenal 50-yard throw to rookie receiver Miles Boykin.
It’s throws like that which have those who erroneously over-corrected on Jackson’s athletic ability and ignored his potential as a pure passer looking for do-overs — if they’re paying attention.
On the following 33-yard pass that Andrews actually caught, watch how Jackson uses pocket movement to establish a clean space and optimal throwing lane, calms his body down to make a touch pass, and connects with his target.
And on the 10-yard throw below to tight end Hayden Hurst, Jackson uses his mobility (gasp! a running quarterback!) to cut the field in half. Then he makes a pinpoint throw on the move.
“It’s just film study,” Jackson said after the game, when I asked him how he has evolved as a thrower. “It’s just watching a lot of film, and it helps me out. … Defenses approach me different, so I just have to play off of them, and I just take advantage of them.”
But on this day, it was Jackson’s ability as a runner that made the difference. And it wasn’t the stuff Baltimore throws at people in scheme, except for Jackson’s 8-yard third-quarter touchdown run. This was pure quarterback power, and very much in line with the multiple run game offensive coordinator Greg Roman has been dialing up all season. It was also a fourth-down play that head coach John Harbaugh needed some cajoling to run.
“He [Lamar] came over. I could see it on his face, he was really upset,” Harbaugh said, regarding the original plan to kick a field goal. “To get all those yards back like he did. I was pretty much going to go for it on 4th and 1. But 4th and 2, 4th and 3 it felt those points would be valuable to take it to a two score game and are pretty valuable…
“But could see it in his face. I said, ‘You want to go for it.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I want to go for it, let’s get it.’ So I went down and called timeout. It was just a great play. I want to say one last thing about that. Greg Roman obviously did a great job with our offense. All of our coaches on both sides did a great job. Our defense had two scores. Greg Roman had been fighting for that play. He thought that play would be there. It was a really well designed play. I told the guys make sure you know that Lamar on the inside. And he goes only in a critical situation, only when we need it the most. So there you go, it was a critical situation.”
Then, there were the scrambles. This 28-yarder in which Jackson seemed to want to make Seattle’s entire defenses miss him at some point in the play…
… and this 30-yarder in which Jackson put a speed test on Seattle’s defense before he got tripped up.
“I always wanted to play against Michael Vick,” Seahawks defensive end Jadeveon Clowney said after the loss. “I guess I’m getting the new era with Lamar Jackson right there. I’m a fan of him though. He’s a great player, did his thing today and won the game… He’s on a different level. He’s on a whole different level. He’s in a lane of his own. Fast guy. He can make anything happen for that team. [They’re] on a bandwagon riding what they’re supposed to do, getting behind a quarterback.”
The Ravens have done exactly that, whether it fits the conventional narrative or not. They’ve maximized Jackson’s athleticism and developed the nuances that make great quarterbacks great over time. And with potential shot plays on every down in so many different incarnations, it’s not an exaggeration to say that we haven’t seen anything quite like it before.
Perhaps that’s why it’s so hard for some to believe.
