Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens reintroduced themselves to the NFL on Sunday in absolutely violent fashion.
Sean McVay and the Rams were in Charlotte this Sunday but the highest-powered offense in the league was hundreds of miles south in Miami.
Lamar Jackson and the Ravens violently reintroduced themselves to the rest of the league, finishing the first week of the season with 59-points and over 600 yards of total offense. Jackson, who has been criticized for his inability to be an effective passer, threw five of the Ravens eight total touchdowns and was so perfect that he was allowed to leave work early.
It was, in a word, explosive.
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The question now is whether or not this is sustainable. There is no chance Baltimore’s offense averages its Week 1 numbers all season but it could be a harbinger of things to come. NFL offenses have evolved and Baltimore wouldn’t be the first team to adapt properly to this new way of life.
It cannot be expressed how wholly unexpected this all was. Mark Ingram scored twice and went over 100 yards amid questions of whether or not he’d be able to replicate his success in New Orleans without Drew Brees or Alvin Kamara. Jackson, who has been knocked as a run-first quarterback, finished the day with 324 passing yards (he went for over 200 yards just once in 2018) and three fewer touchdowns than he threw all of last season. Rookie Hollywood Brown and tight end Mark Andrews combined for over 200 yards and three touchdowns despite the fact that Baltimore supposedly had no offensive weapons.
Not to throw a wet blanket on things but it’s worth noting, Baltimore’s success was had against Miami — a team that is transparently tanking for a rebuild. There’s a difference, though, between beating a team that is clearly bad and blowing its doors off the way the Ravens did.
Baltimore’s next two games are against Arizona and Kansas City, neither of which looked particularly impressive on defense Sunday. The Cardinals are a jumbled mess on that side of the ball and the Chiefs failed to make Gardner Minshew II look like a backup quarterback. If Baltimore bottles up even half of what they did on Sunday in Miami, the next two weeks could look similarly dominant.
The sample size for this new Ravens offense is extremely small, but we’ve already seen there’s a lot to like if this was any indication of what the Lamar Jackson era will be.