JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey used to be wowed by Lamar Jackson.
“He does crazy stuff so much,” Humphrey said Sunday night after Baltimore’s 23-7 win over the Jaguars. “I think everyone else, it does surprise them, but his game is just crazy. He does stuff you can’t teach, that you can’t really coach.
“I remember my first couple years, we used to go ‘Woah!’ Now it’s like, you just made a crazy play, nice. It’s getting to where he’s gotta do stuff he’s never done before to wow us now.”
In his way, Jackson did so again, leading the Ravens (11-3) to victory at EverBank Field, their eighth in the past nine games.
Their win also clinches a playoff berth, and more importantly keeps them atop the AFC and on pace to clinch the No. 1 seed, home-field advantage and a first-round bye with three games remaining in the regular season.
The Miami Dolphins (10-4), Kansas City Chiefs (9-5) and Cleveland Browns (9-5) all won on Sunday to keep pace in the race for the top spot in the conference, but Baltimore remains in control of its playoff future.
It also marks the Ravens’ best start since 2019, when they finished 14-2.
And it was another Most Valuable Player-level performance from Jackson, at least to the large contingent of Ravens fans who flocked south and chanted “MVP, MVP!” as the final seconds ticked away inside the stadium. It was, too, to anyone watching, particularly early in the fourth quarter.
With the Ravens clinging to a three-point lead, Jackson dropped back to pass, ducked his head and somehow spun free from the clutches of swarming 6-foot-3, 275-pound outside linebacker Dawuane Smoot. As the quarterback regained his balance, he shuffled a few more steps back and uncorked what looked to be an ill-advised pass toward Isaiah Likely, who appeared to be open at the Jaguars’ 5-yard line.
Except he was bracketed by cornerback Darious Williams and safety Andrew Wingard.
It didn’t matter.
Like a basketball player going up for a rebound, the 6-foot-4, 241-pound second-year tight end snatched the ball out of the air between the two defenders. Two plays later, running back Gus Edwards plowed into the end zone from a yard out for a 17-7 lead.
The long pass was Jackson at his best and brilliant if not most nerve-wracking.
“I just had to make a play, make something happen,” said Jackson, who completed 14 of 21 passes for 171 yards and a touchdown along with an interception and ran for 97 yards on 12 carries. “I believe if he wasn’t so free Likely would’ve scored because I already seen him, but I couldn’t throw it because [Smoot] was already rushing and I didn’t want a fumble to happen.
“If I tried to drive [the throw] it would’ve been intercepted and I already threw one so I was pissed off. … He can jump a little so it’s like you give him a shot and he made a play a great play.”
Added Likely: “The golden rule is if you wave your hand trying to get the quarterback’s attention, you’ve gotta come down with the ball.”
On a night that was at times scattershot, Jackson, who is 15-4 as a starter in prime-time games in his career, made his share of plays, too.
That included in the second quarter when, on third-and-6 from the Jaguars’ 44-yard line and blitzing safety Rayshawn Jenkins about to hit him, he found an in-cutting Odell Beckham Jr. for a 14-yard gain. Later on the same drive, he connected with Likely on a 16-yard dart for the Ravens’ first touchdown of the game, staking them to a 10-0 lead after a 43-yard Justin Tucker field goal on Baltimore’s opening possession.
“We give Lamar Jackson a game ball every single game,” coach John Harbaugh said. “He wouldn’t take them. He wouldn’t have anywhere to put them in his house.
“I’ve said it before, I believe he’s the best quarterback in the National Football League. He continues to prove it. He took the game over in so many different ways.”
So did the Ravens’ ground attack and their defense.
They needed both.
After the Jaguars reached at least the Ravens’ 36-yard line on four of their first five possessions but came away with zero points, Jacksonville finally capitalized when Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence connected with wide receiver Jamal Agnew on a 65-yard bomb midway through the third quarter. On the play-action pass, it appeared there was a miscommunication between cornerback Arthur Maulet and safety Geno Stone.
That left a wide-open Agnew, who hauled in the long pass, cut back to the inside past a sprawling Stone and waltzed into the end zone for Jacksonville’s first points of the game.
It was Lawrence’s longest completion this season and cut the deficit to a field goal, but that was also as close as the Jaguars would get the rest of the night, with Justin Tucker adding two more field goals from 26 and 34 yards after Baltimore’s ground game and one of the NFL’s best defenses wore down the Jaguars and salted away the game.
“I think that’s what we do, bend don’t break,” inside linebacker Roquan Smith said. “Biggest thing in this game is not yards, it’s about how many points you scored. We try to impose our will on people week in and week out. Those guys, I heard their little motto was it takes a bully … I guess the bully gets hit in the mouth sometimes.
“We knew we didn’t finish the game [here] last year, but it’s a whole different year and this year, whole different team. For the guys who was on the team, it was definitely personal.”
Last year, the Jaguars ended the Ravens’ four-game winning streak, a game that Baltimore led 27-20 with 2:02 left and had better than a 93% chance of winning, according to ESPN.
Then Lawrence led the Jaguars on a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that was capped with a 2-point conversion. Tucker attempted a 67-yard game-winning field goal but it came up short.
It was never that close this time with the Ravens avenging their last two trips south, both losses.
The Ravens’ defense held Jacksonville to just 75 yards rushing and 3 of 13 on third down. They also recovered a pair of fumbles, one in the second quarter after Lawrence simply lost the ball inside the Ravens’ 20 on a run on a third-and-17 and another midway through the fourth quarter on a strip sack by Justin Madubuike at the Jaguars’ 25-yard line.
It was his 11th straight game with at least a half-sack, tying an NFL record.
Although the latter helped seal the victory and wrapped up a spot in the postseason for a second straight year and the fifth time in the past six, the win was also a costly one.
Rookie running back Keaton Mitchell suffered an ugly knee injury, going down at the end of a 13-yard run early in the fourth quarter. His left leg buckled as he was tripped up from behind and he was carried to the blue medical tent on the sideline before being carted off the field.
Mitchell finished with 73 yards on nine carries as well as two catches for 15 yards before giving a thumbs-up as he exited the field, but his loss is a blow to a Ravens backfield that already lost J.K. Dobbins for the season in Week 1. Harbaugh said he expects the undrafted rookie out of East Carolina to be out for the season and veteran Melvin Gordon will be called up from the practice squad.
Despite Mitchell’s injury, however, Baltimore ran for 251 yards — with 204 of them coming in the final 30 minutes — and surpassed 100 for the 30th straight game, tied for the fourth-longest streak since the 1970 merger. The Ravens had a similar streak end in October 2021 at 43 games, which tied the 1974-77 Steelers for the all-time record.
“I think we just kept coming,” Harbaugh said. “After a while, it had its impact.”
He also said that playing in front of the 68,021 at EverBank Field was a playoff-like atmosphere. It’s a sentiment Jackson has echoed the past few weeks as well.
Jackson had another one Sunday night.
“I believe we just getting started,” he said.
Week 16
Ravens at 49ers
Next Monday, 8:15 p.m.
TV: ESPN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
Line: 49ers by 4 1/2