Lamar Jackson Facing Adversity & Making His Case for MVP

Through half of this year’s NFL season, Lamar Jackson has been exceptional and continues to make his case as to why he should be this year’s NFL Most Valuable Player. Since being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens with the 32nd overall in the 1st round of the 2018 NFL draft, Lamar Jackson has been under a ton of scrutiny due to a lack of “accuracy while throwing the ball”. One ESPN analyst by the name of Booger McFarland took to twitter on the date of June 20th, 2017 and said the following; “it wont happen but if Louisville were thinking about Lamar Jackson’s future they would move him to wr, thats where he will play in the NFL” Many scouts believed that Jackson would be converted to a wide receiver or running back in the NFL because he was so agile, athletic, and fast. Coming out of college there were some concerns about Lamar Jackson’s throwing ability and whether or not he would be successful in the NFL as a quarterback. On the day of the 2018 NFL Combine, Lamar skipped out on the 40-yard dash and completed all of the throwing drills, Lamar’s decision to skip out on running the 40-yard dash stemmed from some teams’ skepticism over whether he could play quarterback, one scout from the Los Angeles Chargers suggested that Lamar Jackson should run routes with the wide receivers. 

In one season and a half with the Baltimore Ravens, Lamar Jackson managed to rack up 3,628 passing yards, and a touchdown/interception ratio of 30-8. If that does not impress you, take a look at this rushing stats; So far, Lamar has rushed for 1,571 yards and 11 touchdowns, Lamar is also leading his team to an impressive record, the Baltimore Ravens are currently 9-2 and hold the first place spot in the AFC North. Ever since Lamar’s college days at Louisville, he has faced so much adversity along with criticism from NFL scouts, but all it took was for one team to believe in him, and that team is the Baltimore Ravens. It is safe to say that Lamar Jackson has proved all of his doubters wrong. While the MVP race is tight between Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey, Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson leads the race and is continuing to show why he deserves this year’s NFL MVP award.