Sports Time Radio

In Thursday nights 42-21 victory over the New York Jets Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson pretty much secured the NFL MVP award for himself. Jackson only threw the football 23 times, but completed 15 of those passes for 212 yards. You might not think those are very impressive number until you see that he didn’t throw an interception and oh yeah also threw 5 touchdown passes. Jackson was also the Ravens leading rusher in the game. He ran the football 8 times for 86 yards and in the process of gaining those yards surpassed Michael Vick’s record for most rushing yards by a quarterback in a season. The victory also put the Ravens record at 12-2 and clinched the AFC North division title. That 12-2 record also put the Ravens in the drivers seat for the #1 seed in the playoffs. Which means they wouldn’t have to leave M&T Bank stadium until the Super Bowl. Baltimore is currently 6-1 at home this season. They’ll play their final home game next week as they host the Cleveland Browns.

What makes Jackson’s numbers from Thursday night even more interesting is that he was battling a quad injury. Once the injury news broke there where quite a few pundits on the television talking about how they knew this was going to happen with a running quarterback and the Ravens needed to sit Jackson against the Jets. It’s odd, but it almost seems like these people want Jackson to get injured so they can prove their point. I don’t understand that at all, but I guess they need to be right that badly.

Jackson is the clear cut MVP frontrunner and I believe even if he did get injured he’d still win the award. Now besides having an MVP season Jackson still has something to prove come playoff time. I’m sure that will begin to hear quite a bit about Jackson’s dismal performance against the San Diego Chargers in last seasons playoffs and yes they where still the Chargers.

Jackson did throw 2 touchdowns to 1 interception in that playoff game, but he complete just 14 of the 29 passes he threw for 194 yards as the Ravens where beaten 23-17 in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicated. The Chargers even did a decent job of slowing down Jackson’s running ability. In that game he ran the football 9 times for 54 yards and had 3 fumbles in that game.

There where a lot of people who didn’t understand why Ravens head coach John Harbaugh didn’t make a quarterback change in that game and go to Joe Flacco, but he choose to stay with Jackson and it sure has paid off for him this season. Of course we don’t know if Jackson would’ve played any different this season had he been pulled from that playoff game, but you’d have to imagine it would shake his confidence a little. Plus he had already replaced Flacco as the Ravens starter and it was clear that Flacco’s days with Baltimore where numbered. Can you just imagine the uproar had he led them to a comeback win and then they let him go.

Now that Jackson has pretty much locked down the MVP award the question that came up is will he be a unanimous selection for the award. In 2010 Tom Brady of the New England Patriots was a unanimous selection, but I believe he’s the only one. Could Jackson be the second?

Now there are some other candidates for the MVP award and with the way the voting is done there’s a good chance that one of them will pick up a 1st place vote.

While I do believe Jackson will win in a landslide expect Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks to probably finish 2nd. You have to think that the other quarterback from the playoff teams will get votes. So expect to see Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, Kurt Cousins of the Minnesota Vikings and maybe even Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys get some votes. Prescott may seem like an odd choice with the Cowboys hanging around at .500, he’s currently leading the NFL in passing yards and well he is a Cowboy.

I know you’re saying to yourself that I only listed quarterbacks. Well the NFL is a quarterback driven league and while there are some running backs that may pop up o an MVP ballot hear or there they don’t have enough backing to be a contender for this award. The same goes for any receiver even though I did hear someone try to bring Michael Thomas of the New Orleans Saints into the MVP conversation. I just don’t see that happening Jackson is going to win the MVP award and his closest competition will be another quarterback.

Is Jackson your choice for NFL MVP? Or do you have someone else in mind that you think you’d vote for?

Vic Fangio is in his first season as the Denver Broncos head coach. Actually he in his first season as a head coach anywhere, but he had an interesting idea for the NFL scheduling wise.

Fangio mentioned that the NFL should get rid of the division and just have two conferences. Now this would give each conference 15 teams. As for the scheduling Fangio said that you could play each team in your division one time which would give you 15 games and then if the NFL and their owners wanted to stay with a 16 game schedule that 16th game could be against a natural rival.

I know that I’m way in the minority here, but I like this idea. I remember how much I enjoyed inter-league play in Major League Baseball until they started doing it every week. It would be a throwback to the days when the AFL champion use to meet the NFL champion in the Super Bowl. Not that the NFL needs another reason to build up the Super Bowl anymore than it is imagine what they could do if they knew this was the only time in a season that these two teams would meet.

Now I do see the negatives here, but imagine if the only time Tom Brady played Aaron Rodgers it was in the Super Bowl. Or how about if Lamar Jackson only faced the top defense in the NFC in the Super Bowl. I think it would make the game mean even more than it does now.

I don’t expect anyone to actually consider this, but I have to day that I liked it.

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