Lamar Jackson Has Ravens Peaking at Vital Time
BALTIMORE — Lamar Jackson returned to the Ravens lineup from the reserve/COVID-19 list and led the team to four consecutive victories.
That winning streak has also propelled Baltimore into the sixth-seed of the seven-team AFC playoff race with one game remaining.
Over the past four games, Jackson has thrown for 696 yards with eight touchdowns and two interceptions (111.7 rating). He has also run for 333 yards with another four scores.
"I don’t want to start overthinking," Jackson said. "I just want to keep the laser sharp focus we have going right now and just focus on the task at hand like I said before. We don’t want to [say,] ‘Oh yes, we’re doing this right. We’re doing this wrong.’ Just keep building [and] just keep stacking wins, because that’s what’s important for us right now – winning. So, that’s all we have to keep doing.”
The Ravens entered their Week 16 against the Giants needing both a win and some help from other teams to get back into the playoff field.
Baltimore took care of business with a 27-13 victory over New York. Then, the Browns lost to the Jets and the Colts lost to the Steelers, which pushed the Ravens from No. 8 to No. 6 in the AFC playoff race.
The Ravens travel to Cincinnati to close out the regular season with some margin for error. Baltimore (10-5) can still make the playoffs with a loss to the Bengals (4-10) if Cleveland loses to the Steelers.
However, the Ravens are simply focused on finishing the season strong and winning a playoff game for the first time since 2014.
“It feels great, but we still have Cincinnati in our way," Jackson said. "We have to get ready for them, because those guys are going to come to play. We’re going to Cincinnati, so we just have to be ready and focus on those guys.”
Jackson has lost both the playoff games of his young career. He's fully focused on ending that streak this season.
"We just have to keep it going. We’re doing pretty good so far; we just have to keep doing that," he said.