The Baltimore Ravens are ready for the 2024 season. Baltimore was one of the AFC’s best teams in 2023, but fell just short of getting to the Super Bowl. Now the Ravens are back with a new passion to right the wrongs of the 2023 season.
Lamar Jackson spoke with Kent Babb of The Washington Post for a massive article that covers nearly every angle on the superstar QB.
One interesting part of the article covers Baltimore’s heartbreaking AFC Championship defeat last season. At one point in the interview, Jackson shares why he thinks they lost that game.
“How I’m feeling right now,” Jackson said after a practice in June, “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—. We wouldn’t have even had to throw the ball. F— throwing the ball.”
Jackson is upset about throwing the football because he threw a gruesome interception late in that game that contributed to the loss.
“Lamar’s just going to run it. He’ll be a running back this game,” Jackson continued, thinking ahead to a possible Super Bowl appearance. “That would be the only time they could say I was a running back, because I would run the f— out of the ball.”
Jackson is clearly good at visualizing what he wants to achieve in the future, just like most professional athletes are. However, seeing it in his mind isn’t enough. Jackson wants to make it a reality this season.
“I want to feel it,” he says. “I want the ultimate award of what I’ve been busting my ass to do all my life.”
Ravens QB Lamar Jackson sends NSFW message to his critics ahead of season opener
Lamar Jackson has been one of the most heavily criticized QBs to enter the NFL in a long time.
Jackson has been critically labeled a “running back” by some fans because he is a black, athletic QB who excels at running the ball. He has also received some skepticism for representing himself in contract negotiations and not hiring an agent or a marketing team.
Jackson shot back at his critics with an NFSW message in the same Washington Post article.
“When people just giving me s—, like, ‘Oh, he needs to get an agent’ — I know what the f— I’m doing,” Jackson said. “I knew what I was doing all my life to get in this situation, so how the f— I’m not going to know now?”
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Jackson’s message is particularly relevant for fans who critique his performance and business decisions. He has done nothing to suggest that he is incapable of managing his career, so it is odd for fans to be critical of his choices.
He went on to explain that he doesn’t trust many people as a result.
“I don’t trust people. I’m not fixing to trust them to have my best interests,” Jackson said that he told his mom. “I only trust you. We had parent-teacher conferences, you had my best interests, right or wrong. You’re going to try to defend me. I’m going to say, ‘Yes ma’am, I did that,’ get my a– whooped when I get home, but you still got my best interests.”
Lamar Jackson has a chance to silence his critics in Week 1 against the Chiefs.
The Ravens travel to Arrowhead on Thursday to take on the Chiefs in a rematch of last year’s AFC Championship game.
