Seven seasons into his NFL career, Lamar Jackson is officially the king of running quarterbacks.
The Baltimore Ravens star passed Michael Vick for the NFL’s all-time lead in rushing yards among quarterbacks during the NFL’s Christmas game on Wednesday. He entered the game with 6,023 yards, 86 behind Vick’s 6,109.
The record-setting play came in the third quarter, when Jackson scrambled in the red zone to gain 6 yards and set up a third-and-1, and later touchdown pass to Mark Andrews. He finished the game with 87 yards and a touchdown on only four rushes, along with 10-of-15 passing for 168 yards and two touchdowns.
The bulk of Jackson’s rushing yards Wednesday came on the Ravens’ second offensive play of the the second half, when he took off for a 48-yard touchdown on a read option.
The play that most showed the agility that got him Vick’s record came on a pass play, though. The list of players who can survive while dancing in the teeth of an NFL defense is very, very short, and one of them just happens to be an elite passing quarterback as well.
Jackson caught Vick in only 102 games across seven seasons, while the Atlanta Falcons great played 143 games in a career with appearances in 13 seasons. He had already surpassed Vick in other statistical areas, but the rushing yard mark loomed as the biggest.
Vick himself has rarely missed an opportunity to praise Jackson, going all the way back to when he was a Heisman winner at Louisville.
Should Lamar Jackson be the MVP favorite again?
Rewind a week or two ago, and Buffalo Bills star Josh Allen was a heavy favorite to take home his first career MVP award. Now, the picture isn’t so clear.
Allen has been undeniably brilliant this season, but Jackson may be closing in one of the most impressive seasons in NFL history. There are few quarterback efficiency stats in which Jackson doesn’t lead the NFL, and he’s frankly ahead of Allen in most counting stats as well.
Those are the passing stats. On the rushing side, Jackson has the edge in rushing yards (765 to 514, entering this week) and yards per attempt (6.1 to 5.3), while Allen has more touchdowns (11 to 3).
On the team level, Jackson’s Ravens are now 11-5 and in position to win the AFC North, while the 12-3 Bills are first in an AFC East that was decided weeks ago. The Ravens did blow out the Bills 35-10 when they played this season.
The race could be deeper than the numbers listed above and will no doubt be dissected repeatedly in the coming weeks, but the basics are that Jackson is playing better than he did in his first two MVP seasons in a competitive division race, and that will be very hard to argue against unless Allen does something magical in the next two games.
