It’s safe to say that the first half of the Baltimore Ravens’ season-opening clash against the Kansas City Chiefs — a rematch of the 2024 AFC Championship Game — did not exactly go according to plan. Regardless, reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson appears to not have missed a beat, as he is back to being his best dual threat self on Thursday night.
During that first half, in which the Ravens trailed 13-10, Jackson was his team’s best threat on the ground. He tallied 63 rushing yards on eight carries, for an average of 7.9 per attempt. In getting those yards for his team, he moved to third place on the all-time quarterback rushing yards leaderboards, passing current Pittsburgh Steelers QB1 Russell Wilson, as pointed out by the NBC Sports broadcast via ClutchPoints on X.
Jackson began the night with 5,258 rushing yards for his career, so adding 63 now gives him 5,321, at least at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Wilson has 5,307 for his career, although he could regain third place if he manages to have a good game on the ground for the Steelers when they open their season on Sunday afternoon against the Atlanta Falcons.
Barring an unforeseen injury, Jackson should, at the very least, be able to claim second place on the all-time QB rushing yards ladder. The second placer, Cam Newton, tallied 5,628 rushing yards for his career. Jackson doesn’t have a season in which he has posted fewer than 695 rushing yards, so the Ravens QB is likely to end the year on the cusp of being the greatest rushing QB in history.
By then, the only player that stands above him will be Michael Vick, who tallied 6,109 rushing yards back in the day. Jackson would have to accumulate a total of 852 rushing yards this season to become the all-time leader, although based on his numbers over the past three seasons, it’s likely that that won’t happen until the 2025 season.
At the end of the day, Jackson will know that there are more pressing issues for him and the Ravens to deal with. Their offense has been halted by a spirited Chiefs effort, putting pressure on their defense to slow down Patrick Mahomes and company so they won’t start their season off on the backfoot.
Lamar Jackson and the Ravens are out for payback
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The Ravens emerged as the NFL’s best regular-season team last season, going 13-4 thanks in large part to the way Lamar Jackson led the way for their offense. Jackson, however, did not have the best of times during their 17-10 loss to the Chiefs in the 2024 AFC Championship Game.
For starters, Jackson felt as though he wasn’t able to impact the game as much on the ground. He only tallied 54 rushing yards during that contest, which is fewer than what he had envisioned for himself. In fact, the reigning MVP is kicking himself for not being 100 percent physically during that game, which, he feels, led to the loss.
“How I’m feeling right now. I wish I was feeling like this, body-wise, in the AFC Championship. We would have won the game. I would have been able to move around for my guys. With me just hurting and can’t move, I know if my legs were good, we would have won that s**t. We wouldn’t have even had to throw the ball. F**k throwing the ball,” Jackson said in an interview with Kent Babb of The Washington Post.
