By Alex Woodward
Lamar Jackson has been nothing but humble and mostly successful since taking over as the Ravens quarterback in Week 11 of the 2018 season. When he was announced the starter after the Week 10 bye, he made a comment that really stuck with me. A reporter asked Lamar if he felt it was his team now and Jackson responded quickly with "it's our team".
Ravens QB Lamar Jackson was asked - “is it your team?” ⤵️“This is our team - all of us together,I don’t go out there and block,I don’t go out there and catch the ball,I don’t make tackles,I just do my part - it’s all our team.”-- @Lj_era8 pic.twitter.com/Z3F8h9ioUN
— Jaycob Ammerman (@Jammer2233)
December 14, 2018 Lamar's humility, athleticism and leadership qualities have been everything you could ask out of a franchise quarterback but whether or not he likes hearing this or wants to admit it - this is certainly his team now. He may not block or tackle or catch footballs but he is clearly the best player on the field and the team has nothing but trust in him. The play that defines how much trust the Ravens have in Lamar was late in the 3rd quarter against the Seahawks. The game was tied at 13 and it appeared the Ravens were getting ready to kick a field goal to take a 16-13 lead. The team drove up the field twice earlier in the game and settled for field goals. Not this time...and coach Harbaugh let Lamar make the decision.
"Hell yeah, Coach. Let's go for it!" @Lj_era8 pic.twitter.com/n7WMAQqoID
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens)
October 21, 2019 If you didn't smile while watching that video are you even a football fan? (unless your a Seahawks fan) The trust. The confidence. The support of his teammates. It's a special kind of attitude the Ravens are cultivating and that's the type of attitude that separates good teams from great ones. It speaks volumes about how highly everyone thinks of Lamar Jackson.
Just listen to the way his teammates and coaches speak about his on-the-field capabilities along with his natural leadership.
"People just don't really want to give Lamar the respect he deserves. What I saw today, I felt like, football is a game of a lot of aggression and a lot of emotions...we may have a little snap count infraction with our center and when I saw Lamar like 'c'mon we gotta (get this together)'; I felt like from there something different came out of Lamar. Gets the first down, gets up pumped...that's the quarterback I like to see...when I saw that I got pumped like, let's go!" - Marlon Humphrey
"Anytime you come into a hostile environment like this and you're making powerful plays like that. All it does is energize the sidelines like, that guy's the truth" - Earl Thomas
"This guy is a competitor of the Nth degree. I don't know how to describe what a competitor Lamar Jackson is. He wants to win at everything all the time and we feed off that. He carries that. I think that's who we are as a team. I think that's why he fits us so well and it showed today. You saw that fire." - John Harbaugh
"He shows everybody the way out there on the field about how to respond. I do believe everybody responds to his poise, and his determination to overcome whatever circumstance he’s faced with." - John Harbaugh
Lamar is a natural leader and his competitive drive is contagious. It's a sight for sore eyes after Ravens fans endured years of watching "Joe Cool" trudge around the field with the same drull look on his face no matter what the situation. Lamar gets excited. Lamar gets frustrated. Lamar communicates with his teammates when things are going right or wrong. Lamar is the type of leader you want out of a quarterback and coach Harbaugh wouldn't have asked Lamar if he wanted to go for it if he didn't have faith in him converting. It doesn't matter if Lamar ends up with the MVP trophy at the end of the season or not; he's already the MVP of the Ravens and they know it.
