Forget the MVPs and flashy stats: This is how the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson will be judged at the end of the day

Lamar Jackson has two NFL MVP awards. He should probably have three. And that might be rectified before long, as the Baltimore Ravens star currently leads the league in the most relevant passing categories: touchdowns (9), yards per attempt (9.6) and quarterback rating (141.8).

Except the glitz and the glamour of Jackson’s numbers and play style — smooth-as-silk scrambles, effortless downfield rockets — didn’t translate to victory in a heavyweight Week 3 shootout with the Detroit Lions. And it’s certainly not a guarantee to help the Ravens best the Kansas City Chiefs this Sunday.

The Chiefs may be fading as an inevitable contender. And this far into his career, Jackson’s already cemented his legacy as a generational playmaker. But only one of the quarterbacks set to take the field at Arrowhead Stadium in Week 4 is entrenched in the record books as a bona fide winner. When it comes to that conversation, we can forget, for a moment, the shiny accolades and gaudy stats. For the biggest remaining measure of Jackson’s success is whether he can finally topple fellow AFC powers.

Specifically, the Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills, or the two teams to produce MVPs directly before and after Jackson’s claiming the honor in 2023.

No reasonable mind can deny the special nature of Jackson’s Ravens stardom. He has the best career passer rating (103.1) of any NFL quarterback ever. He boasts the second-best career touchdown-to-interception ratio of all time, behind only Aaron Rodgers. He has the second-best winning percentage (.732), behind only three-time Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes. He is, for all intents and purposes, a Pro Football Hall of Famer between the months of September and December.

January is a different story. And so, too, are the intermittent fall and winter meetups with Buffalo and Kansas City, when Jackson and the Ravens tend to play second fiddle:

Lamar Jackson’s career as a starter vs. Bills

• Record: 2-4 overall (0-2 in playoffs)
• Passing yards per game: 178.3
• Passer rating: 99.4
• Total TDs: 12
• Total turnovers: 7

Jackson’s career rating against Buffalo isn’t bad per se, but the turnover mark is glaring; he’s lost the ball via fumble or interception at least once in five of his six games against the Bills. And ball control is far from the only issue when Jackson’s faced the Chiefs:

Jackson’s career as a starter vs. Chiefs

• Record: 1-5 overall (0-1 in playoffs)
• Passing completion rate: 57.3%
• Passer rating: 80.7
• Total TDs: 9
• Total turnovers: 7

Jackson’s offset some of his passing woes against Kansas City by scrambling more, eclipsing 80 rushing yards in three of six games against the Chiefs. Yet, overall, he’s been far more scattershot than usual. It’s a trend that’s carried over into his entire playoff career, in which he’s gone 3-5 as a starter, completing 60.6% of his passes, with nearly as many total turnovers (11) as touchdowns (13) over those eight games.

Jackson’s most ardent supporters might counter these numbers by arguing that the quarterback isn’t exclusively or even primarily responsible for failing to conquer other AFC contenders. This is a team sport, after all, and shouldn’t Jackson’s numbers naturally dip against the best of the best? Shouldn’t Josh Allen face the same heat as the face of the Bills, forever unable to get over the Chiefs hump when it matters?

The problem is, Allen’s been much more reliable as a postseason game-changer. His first full season as a starter was in 2019, the same year Jackson also took over as the Ravens’ uncontested No. 1. Yet Allen’s appeared in almost twice as many playoff games (13), logging more than twice as many playoff wins (7), and he’s had an undeniably direct hand in two different AFC championship appearances, with 33 total postseason touchdowns and a 101.7 passer rating against just six combined turnovers.

Lamar Jackson vs. Josh Allen career playoff marks

So why is there real pressure for Jackson to finally outlast the Bills? Not only because, well, surviving Buffalo typically means sniffing an AFC title game or Super Bowl, but because on the other side, Allen has already proven more than capable of doing the same for the Bills, whereas Jackson has had a more obvious hand in his own team’s postseason slip-ups. And we don’t even need to bother showing Patrick Mahomes’ resume headlining the Chiefs; five Super Bowl bids in six years about says it all.

It’s possible the Chiefs are truly turning a corner for the worse, with Mahomes pressing to make the most of another makeshift offense. Maybe, by season’s end, Kansas City will be irrelevant in the playoff picture for the first time in more than a decade. Even then, Jackson’s reputation as a big-stage quarterback will be at stake against whichever other AFC foes remain, the Bills included. Maybe the Los Angeles Chargers? The Indianapolis Colts? How about the rival Pittsburgh Steelers, who’ve also had Jackson’s number at times, forcing the MVP into a 59.6% completion rate and more turnovers (12) than total scores (10)?

Again, Jackson is already etched into NFL history for the gifted athlete he is. Often compared to Michael Vick coming out of Louisville, he’s already exceeded Vick as a pure quarterback, with literal MVP production as a passer and more career rushing yards than any player at the position. But Vick is still known more for his otherworldly athleticism than championship-caliber winning (he retired with a 2-3 postseason record), and so far, Jackson is on a similar track. He has no shortage of physical magic. No shortage of beloved leadership. Now all he needs are those defining moments when it matters most.