The Baltimore Ravens go as far as Lamar Jackson takes them. Most of the time, that’s into the playoffs, and while he’s had his fair share of struggles in the big moments, those struggles tend to be team-wide. The point is, Lamar Jackson is one of the most electrifying forces in the NFL.
At his best, Jackson is unstoppable. He’s a two-time MVP, and really should be a three-time MVP, as he was robbed in 2024 even after posting one of the greatest QB seasons of all time. With that ability and those accolades, you’d think he’d consistently be praised as one of the three best quarterbacks in the NFL. Wrong.
Recently, Colin Cowherd ranked the top quarterbacks in the NFL on his show, The Herd with Colin Cowherd. Jackson wasn’t first, second, or third. He wasn’t even ranked fourth on Cowherd’s list. He was placed in fifth…
Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson catches insane disrespect on Colin Cowherd’s QB list
The AFC is stacked with quarterbacks. You could probably say the top-five quarterbacks in the entire league all hail from the AFC. But there is simply no way that Jackson is fifth out of that group. Absolutely not.
Cowherd’s reasoning behind Jackson’s ranking makes it all the more questionable, too.
“The 3 best quarterbacks, to me, in the AFC, feel like Allen, Mahomes, and Burrow. Now, Burrow doesn’t have much to work with and didn’t get to the playoffs the last two years, but he’s a great QB,” Cowherd said. “Then I feel it’s like Herbert, Lamar, and Drake [Maye]. Huge upside, sometimes their floor is a little lower, they make more mistakes.”
There’s a lot to unpack here. People can be fine with Cowherd giving the edge to Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert, though? There’s a discussion to be had.
Burrow and Jackson have put on some absolute masterclasses in recent years. Their teams almost always go back and forth, and with questionable defensive play, some of those games become offensive shootouts. When they go head-to-head, Jackson holds the edge with seven wins to Burrow’s two.
And yes, I understand it’s a team game, and Burrow’s defense is usually worse, but he also possesses an unguardable duo at wideout in Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, which Jackson has never come close to having.
As for Cowherd having Herbert ranked ahead of Jackson…that’s just ludicrous. Herbert is a talented quarterback, but he has never sniffed the success that Jackson has had throughout his career.
Usually in these arguments, people bring up Jackson's postseason slump. If you want to bring up Jackson’s lack of playoff success, though, well then, Herbert is one of the players you legitimately have no argument with, as he’s still winless in the postseason. That’s not entirely Herbert’s fault; his offensive line play was insanely bad in 2025, but a 0-3 record and two touchdowns to five turnovers in the playoffs is ROUGH.
Simply put, there’s really no argument for Herbert over Jackson. As for Burrow, you could have a good conversation, but placing him in the same air as Allen and Mahomes, and not Jackson, should be considered flat-out wrong.
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