Ravens’ Lamar Jackson Surprisingly Outranked in QB Tiers

Lamar Jackson did about all he could for the 2024 Baltimore Ravens. Despite missing out on MVP, his statistical season stacks up well against either of the campaigns in which he successfully took home top award honors, proving himself as a candidate for the best quarterback in the game by continuing his decade of regular season dominance.

Unfortunately for Jackson, he's got nothing left to prove in the fall. It's the playoffs that have haunted his teams, where his and the Ravens' dreams of winning a Super Bowl like Patrick Mahomes' Kansas City Chiefs have done time and time again, or at least make it that far like a few of his biggest rivals.

The Athletic conducted a tier-based ranking of the NFL's most important position, and their regard of Jackson's flat postseason record was reflected in his finish. He was not only usurped by Mahomes, the foil of all foils, but also by Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills after he recently bested Jackson as most valuable, as well as the Cincinnati Bengals' Joe Burrow, pushing the 2x MVP all the way to fourth place.

Mike Sando only had good things to say about Jackson in his write-up, crediting his newly-discovered consistency with his jump in the rankings. "Jackson has finally ascended into the top tier after two seasons of good health and great production in an offense showcasing his passing," he wrote. "He did so with 46 top-tier votes, twice his total from the 2024 QB Tiers."

He shouted out Jackson's maturity, all of the statistical categories in which he just set career-bests, how close he could have come to winning a third MVP last season and, most critically, how he's proven skeptics wrong.

"There was doubt before because it was off-schedule, it was running, it's not sustainable, they have a great defense, they have this, they have that," a voter said. "The offense has put the ball in his hands more, to sling the ball around."