At this point, it doesn't really matter if the Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson say that his various ailments on recent injury reports aren't impacting their play.
The origin is irrelevant. The reality is that Jackson hasn't been very good lately, and it runs the risk of keeping Baltimore out of the playoffs.
The remaining schedule is tough, and if Jackson isn't up to his usual MVP-level self, the Ravens could get knocked backward rather than surging down the stretch.
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NFL.com's Judy Battista laid out the situation like this in a new article on Thursday:
"Jackson missed games with a hamstring injury earlier in the season, but since he has returned, he has missed a day of practice in each of the least three weeks with three different lower body injuries. And he simply hasn't looked right, his mobility understandably impaired, and his accuracy nosediving. In the last four games, Jackson's completion percentage has been in the mid 50s. In the last three, he has not thrown a touchdown pass, and has been intercepted three times. The Ravens can beat quarterback-struggling teams like Minneapolis, Cleveland and the Jets without the best of Lamar. But they got blown out in Joe Burrow's return to the Bengals. The Ravens have a difficult schedule the rest of the way -- they face the Steelers twice, the Bengals, the Patriots and the Packers -- and they'll need something closer to normal Lamar-level play to get to the postseason."
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Those two Steelers games remaining will have the biggest impact on the AFC North race, for sure.
But then to have the other games against Joe Burrow, Drake Maye and Jordan Love? Man, there won't be any days off for the defense, that's for sure.
Jackson can play as well or better than any of those quarterbacks. But that's now what he's shown lately. The Ravens need him to turn it around before it's too late to find a way into the postseason.
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