Ravens All Pro believes Lamar Jackson winning a Super Bowl is ‘inevitable’

Fullback Patrick Ricard says the team’s championship window is every year of his MVP quarterback’s career.

After closing out the 2022 regular season with a win over a Baltimore Ravens team that was resting several starters, Cincinnati Bengals franchise quarterback Joe Burrow told reporters that his team’s ‘Super Bowl window’ was his “whole career” and that “things are going to change year to year but our window is always open.”

At the time, Burrow’s comments were viewed cocky and confident but in truth, they were a reflection of his naivete because, in his first full season as a starter, he took his team to the Super Bowl and came up short of winning the franchise’s first-ever championship to the Los Angeles Rams. While the Bengals returned to the AFC championship the following year after making those comments, they are coming off back-to-back seasons of finishing with a 9-8 record and missing the playoffs.

Making a deep playoff run in the NFL is harder than it is in any other major professional sports league because of its single-elimination format. It makes the criticism of quarterbacks not named Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen for their shortcomings in the postseason overblown, harsh and often unfair.

No player has been dragged by the media more for not winning or even making it to a Super Bowl than Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. The two-time league MVP who will likely be awarded the honor for a third time in the coming weeks isn’t going to be able to put the false narratives about him not being able to make it to or win the big game for at least another year.

The Ravens fell to the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round of the 2024 playoffs this past Sunday despite Jackson’s incredibly valiant efforts to lead and nearly complete second-half comeback. He was visibly and verbally frustrated following the loss and understandably so given the familiar nature of how it unfolded similarly to most of the team’s premature postseason exits since he became the full-time starter midway through his rookie season in 2018 with several key turnovers leading to their ultimate demise.

“We can’t have that [expletive],” Jackson said. “That’s why we lost the game, because as you can see, we’re moving the ball wonderfully. It’s just hold onto the [expletive] ball. I’m sorry for my language. I’m just tired of this.”

While Burrow made his own proclamation about his team’s chances to win it all with him at the helm, Jackson’s teammates did the proclaiming for him. In the eyes of five-time Pro Bowl fullback Patrick Ricard, Jackson winning a Super Bowl isn’t a matter of if but rather when because he views it as an eventuality, not just a possibility.

“It’s inevitable. He’s going to win a Super Bowl, and I want to be a part of it,” Ricard said Monday during the Ravens locker cleanout. “It just sucks that it hasn’t happened yet. I, personally, feel bad for him because he deserves it, just because of how great of a player he is. He deserves to be considered one of the best quarterbacks. He already is, but I know everyone considers championships as the standard, and he’ll get it one day.”

The MVP is an award based on regular-season performance only. Since the 2024 regular season ended officially on January 5 and the Associated Press voters for the honor had to have their ballots in on the 6th, Jackson secured what is likely his third career MVP and second in as many years before his 28th birthday, which came January 7th. He is a confirmed four-time Pro Bowler and three-time First Team All Pro selection.

As impressive as Jackson’s individual accolades and accomplishments are, quarterbacks are measured by wins and champions. While he has plenty of the former, his lack of the latter is what will be held against him until he can lead his team over the proverbial hump and into the promised land to the Super Bowl title he vowed to bring to the organization, city and fan base the night he was drafted nearly eight years ago.

Despite leading the Ravens to the playoffs five times in his first seven seasons in the league, he has only made it to the AFC title game once which finally came last year, the divisional round each of the last four times and got bounced in the wildcard as a rookie.

“I have to get over this, because we’re right there,” Jackson said. “I’m tired of being right there, we need to punch it in. We need to punch in that ticket. We have to get right in the offseason.”

Jackson is far from the first Hall of Fame caliber or already enshrined quarterback to have struggled to break through in the postseason in the early portion of their respective career and he won’t be the last.

The great Peyton Manning had the exact same 3-5 playoff record as Jackson through his first five tries playing deep into January. It took the 14-time Pro Bowler until his seventh postseason berth to reach the Super Bowl and finally win it all for the first time at 30 years old. He would finish his career with two rings after helping the Denver Broncos snap a nearly 20-year title drought in his final season in 2015.

“There’s still time,” said Ricard. “He’s still young. He’s definitely going to get one at some point.”

While Jackson still has the lack of postseason success narrative to overcome, he has dispelled or completely proven wrong all the other negative ones about him each year but especially in 2024. He was the best passer in the league by several metrics. He became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for 4,000-plus yards and run for 900-plus yards in the same season and led his team back from several double-digit deficits including in Sunday’s loss to the Bills. He led an 88-yard drive that would’ve tied the game and potentially forced overtime barring another defensive stop had it not been for a drop by one of his most trusted targets.

“Lamar is what makes this team go, and he’s the reason why we still had a chance,” five-time Pro Bowl running back Derrick Henry said. “He’s a Hall of Fame player, had a great season. It’s a team effort. We came up short together. It’s not on him. Forget what anybody else outside of what we [have] going on says. We believe in him, and we’ll always [have] his back.”

In a similar fashion to how Burrow proclaimed that the Bengals would always have a shot to win it all in a given year for the entirety of his career, Ricard believes the same applies to the Ravens every year Jackson is in Baltimore.

“As long as Lamar is here, you’ll have a shot every year at getting a Super Bowl,” Ricard said. “That’s the main thing; as long as Lamar is here, he has a good group of guys around him that play hard for him, that’s all he needs.”