Star Black quarterbacks no longer are the exception – they’re the rule. Throughout the football season, this series will explore the prominence and impact of Black quarterbacks from the grassroots level to the NFL.
BALTIMORE — Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson put on yet another dazzling exhibition on Saturday and took another hopeful step toward making his first Super Bowl appearance.
In an AFC wild-card game, the Ravens smothered the Pittsburgh Steelers 28-14. With raucous Raven fans shouting “MVP, MVP,” Jackson displayed the compendium of electric running and passing skills that have made him the NFL’s most exciting player — and quite possibly a three-time league MVP.
As he has done throughout the season, Jackson put up impressive numbers as a passer (16 completions on 21 attempts for 175 yards and two touchdowns) and as a runner (15 carries for 81 yards). This was Jackson’s third postseason win in seven tries, and as much as the MVP chants must have been intoxicating, the criticism Jackson has received after each of the Ravens’ four postseason losses with him as quarterback were stinging, with fans ablaze on social media wondering if Jackson was the guy to lead the franchise to Super Bowl glory.
Jackson led Baltimore to a playoff win against the Houston Texans last year and he heard the intoxicating cheers. A week later, the Ravens lost at home to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. There were no cheers.
Sports are an emotional enterprise and fans — no matter how rational they may be outside of the arena — are fickle. Jackson knows that it will take more than a wild card victory over a reeling Steelers team to remove the bitter taste of last year’s devastating home loss to Kansas City.
Al Bello/Getty Images
Jackson’s birthday is Jan. 7, so each birthday celebration is a convenient way to measure his growth as a quarterback.
He was a day shy of his 22nd birthday in 2019 when he played and lost in his first playoff game. Jackson was 23 in 2020 when he lost again in the playoffs after an outstanding regular season. He won his first playoff game in 2021 at age 24 then lost a year later at 25. Jackson missed the 2023 postseason at age 26 with an injury. He won a first-round game last season at age 27 before losing to Kansas City.
Now, four days after his 28th birthday, Jackson has won his third playoff game and is likely headed to a head-to-head confrontation in Buffalo with Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Each year the pressure mounts, so much so that Jackson has been criticized during the postseason for allowing his nerves to get the best of him — for playing free during the regular season, then becoming a prisoner of his emotions when the stakes are raised.
After Saturday’s win, Jackson told reporters that during the game he had his emotions in check.
“I was just chill,” he said. “I’m not going to lie, I was eager throughout the whole week to hurry up and become Saturday, but when the day came, I was just cool throughout the day. I didn’t want to get on the phone. I didn’t want to talk. My mom called me. I said, ‘I don’t want to talk. No disrespect – never disrespect – but I don’t want to talk. I’m just ready for the game. Let me get to the game. I don’t want to play around or smile.’ It was just that type of thing, and that’s what it’s going to be each and every time.”
Until he leads Baltimore to a Super Bowl win, Jackson will likely have to answer the same question: can Playoff Lamar play up to the standards of Regular Season Lamar?
More than being elected to the Hall of Fame, reaching the Super Bowl — and winning a ring — becomes an obsession for most star players. Regardless of other awards, and even the compensation earned over a career, winning a Super Bowl championship is a career-defining achievement.
Before Saturday’s game, Steelers defensive star T.J. Watt explained why he wanted to win a ring so badly.
“I say all the time, there’s a big difference between guys that come back that are Super Bowl champions and guys that aren’t,” Watt explained. “And that’s not a slight at the guys that aren’t. I’m one of those guys right now, but there’s definitely an aura to a guy that has won a Super Bowl. And there’s a togetherness, a close-knit group of guys that when they come back for those alumni weekends, they hang out and they bond, and they talk about their successes on and off the field and that Super Bowl run.”
Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images
In some ways the Super Bowl ring is like a college degree, it’s an honor and achievement that cannot be taken away. Win a Super Bowl and you become part of an exclusive club. After yet another playoff loss, Watt’s dream of being admitted to that club in Pittsburgh seems bleak.
On social media, if not within the Steelers organization, the topic of debate is whether Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, the NFL’s longest tenured head coach, has coached or should have coached his last game in Pittsburgh and whether quarterback Russell Wilson has thrown his last pass as a Steeler.
The prevailing notion in the social media ether is that Wilson is over the hill and should be allowed to walk and that Tomlin should be fired or, better yet, traded to another organization for draft picks that will help rebuild the team. The Denver Broncos acquired head coach Sean Payton from the New Orleans Saints for first- and second-round picks.
This sort of hot button speculation has surrounded Tomlin for years, and I imagine after 18 seasons in Pittsburgh he’s become anesthetized to the speculation. Although Pittsburgh has never had a losing season during Tomlin’s tenure, he’s also not led Pittsburgh to a playoff win since 2016 — that’s coming up on a decade. Saturday’s loss was the Steelers’ fourth wild card loss in five years.
I have deep respect and admiration for Tomlin and feel that he has earned the right to stay in Pittsburgh until HE feels it’s time to leave. On the other hand, this is a bottom-line business and Tomlin knows it. Anything is possible and anything is plausible.
Bill Belichick was effectively booted out as head coach in New England after 24 seasons and six Super Bowl rings. Tom Brady was nudged out as quarterback in New England after winning six rings. Brady found a new home in Tampa Bay and won a seventh championship.
Presumably, Tomlin, 52, can make a fresh start in a new home if it comes to that, though in a tumultuous industry where coaches come and go, there is something to be said for stability. Whatever happens, the one thing that Tomlin and Wilson have in common is that each of them is a member of the elite Super Bowl club — the club Jackson, Watt, Allen want to be part of.
Wilson and Tomlin are in the same legacy boat. Both have reached two Super Bowls and won one of them. They have not been close to reaching the Super Bowl in a number of years, but they are in the club. Wilson led Seattle to victory in Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014. He lost in Super Bowl XLIX a year later after a potential game-winning pass was intercepted in the end zone. Tomlin won his Super Bowl title in 2009 and reached the Super Bowl again in 2011 and lost. Ravens head coach John Harbaugh is also a member of the Super Bowl club. He led the Ravens to a victory in Super Bowl XLVII.
Scott Taetsch/Getty Images
In the Ravens locker room after Saturday’s game, I asked Harbaugh why he thought being in the Super Bowl club was so affirming.
“Because it’s so hard to do,” he said. “It’s like anything else, it puts you in just a different place, and you kind of realize that it’s like, ‘OK, you’re done. We’ve been there.’ ”
Harbaugh said that the pursuit of another ring, whether or not you win again, becomes like an addiction. “Once you do win one … like when Lamar wins the Super Bowl, he’s gonna want to do it again. You know, it’s not like, ‘OK, now, I got what I want.’ You want to get back, you want to do it again, because it’s just such an amazing experience.”
Harbaugh referenced Fred Shero, the legendary NHL hockey coach who led the Philadelphia Flyers to back-to-back Stanley Cup titles.
“He told his team, ‘If we win the Stanley Cup, we will walk together forever,’ ” Harbaugh said. “That’s what I told our team before the Super Bowl: Super Bowl teams walk together forever.”
Lamar Jackson wants to make that walk, wants to join that Super Bowl club. Whether he will is anybody’s guess. All we can say for sure is that Saturday was a great day for Playoff Lamar.