Following Lamar Jackson’s electrifying performance in the Baltimore Ravens’ 45-6 trouncing of the Los Angeles Rams during “Monday Night Football,” he is universally considered the leading candidate for NFL’s MVP Award.
Jackson also sits atop the list of NFL quarterbacks with the best quarterback rating through 11 games in 2019. In fact, the top five quarterbacks in the NFL with the highest quarterback ratings are African Americans, according to ESPN’s “Total Quarterback Rating.”
This is a radical departure from the previous eras when Blacks were not considered intelligent enough to play and thrive in the position.
Jackson’s nearest competitors for the Most Valuable Player Award are also Black quarterbacks, including Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson as well as last year’s MVP, the Kansas City Chief’s signal-caller Patrick Mahomes. Last year, Mahomes took home the sport’s top prize after throwing for more than 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns, truly astounding numbers.
“Action Jackson,” as Jackson is called, finished the game with a near-perfect quarterback rating (QBR) again as he dissected the Rams like a medical school corpse on the way to delivering the Rams their greatest ever home defeat. And, in the process, Jackson is continuing to dazzle old school football purists with these dizzying numbers, according to ESPN:
- Youngest player (22 years old) with multiple games of five touchdown passes in NFL history;
- First player in NFL history with four touchdown passes and at least 50 yards rushing in consecutive games;
- First player with at least 3,000 passing yards and 1,500 rushing yards over his first two seasons in NFL history;
- First player in NFL history to throw for five touchdown passes in their “Monday Night Football” debut.
Not bad for a man experts said should change positions and become a running back or receiver when he was drafted in 2017.
Jackson is the latest of the dynamic African American quarterbacks who are taking the league by storm. If Jackson or Wilson wins the MVP, it will be the first time a Black player has ever won the award in back-to-back seasons.
ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating (Total QBR), released in 2011, “incorporates all of a quarterback’s contributions to winning, including how he impacts the game on passes, rushes, turnovers and penalties.”
Jackson leads the NFL with an 81.9 QBR, followed by Mahomes with 76.9, Dallas Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys at 75, Wilson is fourth with a 74.1 rating and Deshaun Watson of the Houston Texans rounds out the Top 5 with a 70.1 QBR.
