February 15, 2025
Lamar Jackson on the Ravens’ recent playoff frustration, fueled by turnovers and the loss of Mark Andrews – “Tired of this shit”

Lamar Jackson on the Ravens’ recent playoff frustration, fueled by turnovers and the loss of Mark Andrews – “Tired of this shit”

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — As Lamar Jackson spoke Sunday night, the Baltimore Ravens quarterback kept flailing his hands as if he was awake but trying to emerge from a nightmare.

“I tried to push the ball, it slipped”…SMACK... “from my hand.”

“Tonight, the ball losses, we can’t have that”… CLAP …”You know?”

“It means holding on to the damn ball. I’m sorry for my language”… CLAP … “But this shit is annoying. I’m sick of this shit.”

It felt like a temporary physical impulse born of angry energy. Or disappointment. Maybe a combination of disbelief and frustration. And it was undoubtedly fitting. Almost every one of those emotions – and perhaps all of them – painted the right picture of the Ravens after a 27-25 AFC playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills that was nothing more than a recap of mistakes and missed opportunities in the divisional round.

A dropped pass from Derrick Henry, who is wide open with plenty of room to run. A bad snap for Jackson that turned into a fumble. A misunderstood security and a costly interception. An extremely rare catch-and-fumble by tight end Mark Andrews – only to be eclipsed in infamy when he sank a 2-point conversion late in the fourth quarter that should have tied the game.

When it was finally over, Jackson noted that while the Ravens underperformed themselves, they never beat on Sunday. They didn’t have to. Instead, they worked with utmost efficiency to give the Bills the ball for free.

Taken as a whole, with all the necessary and cruel context of what might have been, this will end up being another addition to the annual media anthology detailing how Jackson’s elite status as a quarterback continues to be tarnished by a playoff record. He’s now 3-5 in the postseason and has developed an ugly wart on his resume that won’t be ignored by his critics.

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) warms up before playing against the Buffalo Bills in an NFL divisional playoff football game on Sunday, January 19, 2025, in Orchard Park, NY (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) warms up before playing against the Buffalo Bills in an NFL divisional playoff football game on Sunday, January 19, 2025, in Orchard Park, NY (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Another Ravens season went up in smoke for Lamar Jackson in upstate New York. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Of course, the disparagement rarely accompanies the fact that one of the Mount Rushmore quarterbacks of our time, Peyton Manning, went 3-6 in his first nine playoff games. Or that during this period of Manning’s futility, the lament was that he sometimes couldn’t pull off victories in the biggest moments, particularly in losses to the New England Patriots and Tom Brady.

In this regard, Jackson is not alone in his playoff difficulties. He’s just taking the arrows now because he hasn’t done what Manning did yet relax of his career: He went 11-7 in his last 18 playoff games and won two Super Bowls. With Sunday’s loss to the Bills – who now advance to the AFC title game to face their own opponent in the Kansas City Chiefs – the Ravens are going home.

They are eliminated with a loss that cannot be attributed entirely to Jackson. He made mistakes. Two expensive ones. But when the moment came to take control near the end of the game, he masterfully led Baltimore with an eight-play, 88-yard drive, punctuated by a 24-yard touchdown pass from Jackson that suddenly gave a noisy Bills caused the audience at Highmark Stadium to move in their seats, if not almost suffocating them.

On the next play, Andrews’ wild backward motion and his own ice-cold forearms caused a perfectly catchable ball from Jackson to ricochet off his tight end’s chest and land straight into the nightmares of Ravens fans. The groan of disbelief would have been heard across Maryland if it hadn’t been drowned out by a Bills crowd exploding with jubilant relief.

Of course, the pressing question then became whether Jackson had a moment to talk to Andrews after the mistake. And like the teammate and leader he is in the franchise, he stepped to the forefront of the narrative.

“We’re a team,” Jackson said. “S***, I had two costly ball losses in the first half. Since I wasn’t holding the safety – just knowing the coverage and knowing it was a man, I threw a B interception. At that time it was 7:7, I think they scored a goal after that. I fought back. A fumble. [On the] Snap, trying to make something happen. It was like an RPO play, so I couldn’t really throw the ball [Isaiah] Probably. The offensive line was at the end of the field. So I tried to make a difference. I tried to squeeze the ball and it slipped out of my hand. Von Miller picked it up and gained a few yards. I think that got them points. It’s a team effort out there.

“[Mark has] busted his ass. He makes sure that the games out there on the field are possible for us. Came too short. As I’ve said all season, turnovers and penalties always play a role when we find ourselves in a situation like this. Tonight, the turnovers, we can’t have that, you know? That’s why we lost the game. Because as you can see, we [were] move the ball wonderfully. It’s called holding on to the damn ball. I’m sorry for my language, but this is damn annoying. I’m sick of this shit.”

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That was the monologue mentioned above, during which Jackson clapped his hands. And that wasn’t the end of it.

“I’m just as hurt as Mark,” Jackson said. “We all played a role in the game. It’s a team effort. I just won’t put Mark through that. …We didn’t do what we were supposed to do. Protecting the ball is the top priority. We didn’t do it. Especially me. I am the leader. I have to protect this ball. So I’m hot.”

He wasn’t alone. Head coach John Harbaugh also portrayed it as a team loss, deflecting attention away from Andrews and simply praising the reality of football for the Ravens this season. And they are these: For most of the season, the Ravens protected the ball as well as any team in the NFL. That wasn’t the case on Sunday evening. Why it happened that day for Baltimore is the premise of the game that plays out every single season for 31 NFL teams.

“It’s football,” Harbaugh said. “That’s how football works. If you want to pull a big cosmic thread, pull it for every single team in the league except the team that wins. It’s hard to win. It’s a big challenge. Therefore this [Kansas City] Chiefs, you have to admire what they did. It’s hard to win playoff games. It’s hard to get into the playoffs. Then it’s difficult to win playoff games. Now you have to get four playoff wins to win a championship. Then you don’t win, then you go and want to start drawing threads. There is no thread. It’s football. This game went the way it did.”

And for the Ravens, the way it went was a step down from last season’s No. 1 seed and a rise to the AFC Championship Game. This leaves Baltimore picking up the pieces and dealing with the inevitable conjecture of what’s preventing it from advancing to the other side of this postseason stagnation. It’s a problem the Ravens addressed in the offseason by giving Jackson an elite running back in Derrick Henry who could ride as his partner and take some of the load off his shoulders.

Now? Only the Ravens, Jackson and every remaining part of this team can figure out what comes next. Just like last season, when the Ravens were reeling from a 17-10 loss to the Chiefs and a costly fumble by wideout Zay Flowers. Not long after that was over, Jackson’s inability to get the Ravens to the Super Bowl became the dominant theme of the offseason. And perhaps he will be remembered that way – both for his ball losses and for the mistakes of the players around him.

Whether that’s the case or not, it’s clear that this affected Jackson emotionally. You could see it in his fidgeting and feel it in his energy Sunday night. The frustration is there. For the fans. For every part of the team. And certainly for the quarterback, whose loss is probably still largely due to his two turnovers and not what happened afterward. But as frustrating as it may be, it’s the approach that Jackson will remember most.

As he said Sunday night, “I’m tired of being right there. We have to redeem it. We have to redeem this ticket.”

CLAP.

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