Can Lamar Jackson erase criticisms of his playoff resume?

Plenty of NFL fans will pick this week as their favorite of the year.

It’s reasonable, though the structure of the divisional round has changed a bit. We used to be guaranteed the four best teams in the NFL with two teams in each conference getting byes, and that’s down to just one bye each for the AFC and NFC. But we still have a pretty good group of eight teams. Hopefully that leads to better games than wild-card weekend, when we got one good game among the six.

Let’s get right into the picks for our four games for the divisional round, with the spreads from BetMGM:

Ravens (-9.5) over Texans

It’s becoming scary to bet against C.J. Stroud. The Texans rookie is beyond his years. If he doesn’t end up being an elite quarterback for years to come, it will be a shock.

But he’s also going against a quarterback who has already arrived as a future Hall of Famer. Don’t think Lamar Jackson is on his way to Canton? Every other player who has multiple MVPs is already in, or is Patrick Mahomes and well on his way: Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Jim Brown, Brett Favre, Johnny Unitas, Mahomes, Joe Montana, Kurt Warner, Steve Young. And Jackson is a few weeks away from his second MVP.

The problem has been Jackson’s playoff resume. Every critic of Jackson can recite it. He has three touchdown passes, five interceptions, a miserable 68.3 passer rating and the Ravens have a 1-3 record. To some, it’s proof Jackson can’t play in the playoffs. That’s ridiculous. He just hasn’t had that success yet. There’s no fatal flaw in his game that happens to pop up every January.

If the Ravens are one-and-done this postseason, there should be plenty of blame to go around. This is a Ravens team that can and arguably should win a Super Bowl. They’ve blown out plenty of good teams this season. One of them was the Texans, beating them 25-9 in the season opener. Houston has improved a lot since then, but I still think a rested Ravens team cruises.

What can a fully rested 49ers team do? We’re…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-01-18 16:23:31

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