Baltimore Ravens fans had every reason to bristle when Lamar Jackson landed at No. 69 on the NFL Top 100. The number itself was jarring enough. What made it sting even more was seeing Jackson’s own peers help push the conversation in a direction that felt wildly out of step with what he’s done on the field.
That’s why Ryan Clark’s defense on First Take hit such a nerve. The former Ravens rival didn’t dance around it. He made the case that Jackson’s standing should be judged through the same lens as the league’s elite, not as if one uneven season wipes away everything else.
“Outside of Patrick Mahomes, there is no more accomplished quarterback in the entire NFL individually [than Lamar Jackson]. There is no quarterback who carries more than Lamar Jackson; there is no quarterback who is asked to do more than Lamar Jackson,” Clark said.
“We talked about some of the disrespect he has gotten; that’s disrespect I expected. I expected executives to not know where to place him…What I didn’t expect is dudes that have to line up in pads to not understand how scary it is to walk on the field when this dude is right.
And ain’t that much changed in one year.”
Jackson’s 2025 season was never going to be enough to carry him unchanged through the rankings. He missed four games because of injury, and after hurting his hamstring, there were stretches where he clearly wasn’t at his sharpest. Even so, he still gave Baltimore enough with his arm to stay dangerous and keep the Ravens in playoff contention until the literal final play of their 2025 campaign.
That’s what makes the 67-spot fall so hard to swallow. A slide into the 30s or 40s would have at least made some sense. Dropping all the way to 69 feels extreme, especially when the reaction around the league has been so stunned.
Clark tied that frustration to another quarterback who is almost certain to rank above Jackson: Joe Burrow.
“When you take a look at a guy like Joe Burrow and where he’s ranked, they don’t take into account how much he’s been injured, or how little he’s played, how awful his team has been,” Clark said. “They look at Joe Burrow when he is on the field, what he has accomplished, and they rank him by that…the same exact thing should go for Lamar Jackson.”
That comparison lands because Burrow is unquestionably one of the best quarterbacks in football. But it also exposes the double standard Ravens fans keep seeing. Three of Burrow’s six seasons have featured 10 or fewer games, and while the Cincinnati Bengals’ offensive line has been a major factor in those injuries, Jackson has dealt with the same kind of physical toll in 2025.
Even so, Burrow is almost certainly going to be placed ahead of Jackson on the NFL Top 100, despite playing in three fewer games last season and, debatably, looking worse than Jackson when he was out there.
That’s the part that keeps fueling the outrage. Jackson remains held to a harsher standard than other quarterbacks, and until he wins a Super Bowl, it seems unlikely that the noise around him is going away.
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