Baltimore Ravens must continue starting Lamar Jackson

After a solid performance from rookie quarterback Lamar Jackson in a win over the Bengals, the Ravens need to keep him as the team’s starting quarterback.

With Joe Flacco sidelined with a hip injury, all the former Super Bowl XLVII MVP could do was watch as the future of the Baltimore Ravens franchise took over a must-win game vs. the Cincinnati Bengals. 2018 first round pick Lamar Jackson left quite the impression in his first career NFL start. In fact, Jackson’s performance could earn him more starts in 2018 than we thought.

For the day, Jackson completed 13 of 19 pass attempts for 150-yards, giving him a fantastic 7.9 YPA average on the day. However, Jackson didn’t throw any touchdowns, and threw a costly interception to Bengals safety Shawn Williams. With that being said, we have to take Jackson’s stat line with a grain of salt. Yes, his box score isn’t jaw dropping, but Jackson was throwing darts and showed some improvements as a passer compared to where he was early this year.

While none of Baltimore’s receivers, short of Willie Snead, had a noteworthy afternoon, Lamar Jackson was able to get the most out of his teammates and set up big plays. To illustrate this, players John Brown, Mark Andrews, and Chris Moore all had just a single target on Sunday. Despite this, each had a game-defining reception that was key to moving the chains for the Ravens.

While we certainly have to give credit to the receivers, their big-plays were largely thanks to Lamar Jackson extending plays with his legs. The athlete that Lamar Jackson is completely redefines Baltimore’s offense. The team’s running game looked more alive than it has all year and Jackson made every snap unpredictable for the Bengals defense.

While all this is great and exciting, it’s not the real reason why we believe Lamar Jackson must remain the starter for the Baltimore Ravens moving forward.

A renewed offense:

Offensive Coordinator Marty Mornhinweg called a solid game vs. Cincinnati that led to the team getting a crucial win within the division. Mornhinweg’s play-calling was directly altered to the quarterback running the offense. When Joe Flacco was under center, the team tended to throw the ball way more often. But with Lamar Jackson in as the starter, the team turned to the run game.

If there was ever a week to establish a run game, it was this week. The Ravens threw the ball just 19 times compared to a whopping 54 rushing attempts. Pleasantly surprising was how effective the team’s run game became with Jackson. While Jackson did rush for over 100-yards, so did UDFA running back Gus Edwards. Having a quarterback and running back run for over 100-yards in a single-game is an incredibly rare feat and must be praised. It’s that kind of production that makes the Ravens offense so much more innovative than with Flacco at the helm.

At the end of the day, the Baltimore Ravens know exactly what they have in Joe Flacco. The team’s offense is simply stagnant with Flacco under center. Lamar Jackson gives the offense a unique blend of insanity and explosiveness not seen in the entirety of the “Joe Flacco era.” With many people’s jobs on the line, the time to continue starting Lamar Jackson is now, as continued performances like this will only increase Baltimore’s chances of victory moving forward.