It was most definitely The Lamar Jackson Show on Sunday night, as he helped his Baltimore Ravens defeat the New England Patriots in primetime in Week 9.
It was a tricky proposition whether to start Lamar Jackson against the New England Patriots on Sunday. After putting up over 34 points in his first two weeks of the season in fantasy football, Jackson had only achieved 30 points one other time this season and that came against the winless Cincinnati Bengals at home back in Week 6.
So there were some people who decided to keep “Action Jackson” on their benches this week. New England had a defense that was better than Grits Blitz through eight weeks. Knowing that Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was going to take away what the Ravens do best offensively (Jackson’s legs) and make them play left-handed (Jackson’s arm), this one seemed like a Patriots victory.
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Or that’s what The Fantasy Footballers initially believed. That turned out to not be the case, as Jackson would have one of his better fantasy days of the season. He completed 17 of 23 passes for 163 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. As a runner, he had 61 rushing yards for two touchdowns. In total, he finished with 30 fantasy points in Baltimore’s win over the Patriots.
These things happen. Sometimes an offense can be too different for even the best defense in the league to overcome. While that’s not to say that the Patriots have the best defense in football because it gave up 37 points on the road to Baltimore, this is still one of the better defenses in the league. But that doesn’t matter for the Ravens, as Jackson and his team took care of business.
Jackson may not be throwing for a ton of touchdown passes anymore, as that was his first aerial strike for six since Week 5 on the road against the archival Pittsburgh Steelers. That being said, this was the first time this season that Jackson took it in himself for six points twice. As always, rushing touchdowns are worth more than touchdown receptions and Jackson benefits from that.
Overall, it’s tough to see a quarterback score 30 points for your fantasy team on the bench, but that just might have been the case if you decided to sit Jackson out for this one against New England. We can’t blame you for it, but hopefully, the guy you started over him this week did more than 30 points this week. Unless you have Russell Wilson, that probably didn’t happen for you.