No matter how many times he’s proven himself to be a top quarterback in this league, Lamar Jackson is still the subject of criticism. Is he the best thrower of the football the NFL has ever seen? No. But is he still an extremely talented passer? Absolutely.
The Baltimore Ravens quarterback has dealt with a lot of unfair criticism. When he first entered the NFL, former Indianapolis Colts general manager Bill Polian infamously suggested he should make the switch to wide receiver. Polian has since admitted that he was wrong, but did not vote Jackson a first-team All-Pro during his unanimous MVP season in 2019.
Unfortunately for Jackson, he still has to deal with the old guard of the NFL, which is still heavily rooted in its ways, especially when it comes to how it talks about Black quarterbacks. And that reared its ugly head when former Rams head coach Mike Martz was asked on CBS Sports Radio if Jackson can get to the point where he is a great passer and win a Super Bowl.
“I don’t know because they don’t have a lot of receivers around him and just kind of by the nature of what they do,” Martz said on Maggie and Perloff Thursday. “I don’t know how good [at] processing things and that’s the key, how quick you can process, read and react. He certainly can throw the ball well, I’ll never doubt that, but the key to everything that Joe Montana or you know [Tom] Brady and [Patrick] Mahomes is what they see and can react to correctly is remarkable in such a short period of time. I don’t know if he has that.”
It remains to be seen how Jackson will respond, but he’ll likely let his play do the talking instead.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.