Lamar Jackson: ‘Sunday Is Like a Playoff Game’ | Baltimore Ravens

Lamar Jackson: ‘Sunday Is Like a Playoff Game’ | Baltimore Ravens

So Lamar, when you miss practice, everyone gets all concerned now with out there. So how are you feeling today? Feeling good. Uh I feel like we had a productive day. Fast Friday. Um yeah. How health-wise though? How are you feeling? Feel pretty good. Feel pretty good. Yeah. I know I know you said you were tired at answering the injury questions, but if something happens during practice, does it feel like you know what else can go wrong at some point or do you just put that aside? I mean, probably at the moment, but then you got to put it, you know, put that aside and just lock in when you out there. How you dealing with uh what’s going on the last three games without throwing a TD pass, but you guys won, I think, two of those three. Yeah, you know, I’m not I’m not ecstatic about that at all. you know, uh I’m mad, but I’m happy we got the wins when we did, but you know, this past uh Thursday, Thanksgiving night. I weren’t happy at all. You know, we had turnovers, you know, uh Mr. Simon saying that like we wasn’t us. So, I’m not happy about that at all, you know, but if I’m not scoring a touchdown, but we winning, who can be mad at a loss, I’m at a win, you know? I’ll be mad at the losses. Lamar, when you go when you go through a stretch like the last few games where it hasn’t been as good as it typically is for you, obviously you’ve set a high bar for yourself as a professional, how do you approach that? Do you change up your routine at all? Do you work harder? Do you you know, some people even say when when you’re going through some tough things, maybe you try easier, you know, how do you approach that as a professional when, you know, things aren’t going for you personally the way you want them to? Uh, just stay the course, you know. Um, I don’t change up anything. I just still be me at the end of the day and just do my do what I was supposed to do. Do my job. Yeah. Or did you get stepped on in practice? Uh yeah, I did. Uh Wednesday I did. Wednesday. Wednesday I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want to name any names? Huh? Of who stepped on me? Yeah. Who stepped people? No, man. Y supposed to be on our side. Why would I want to check? That’s crazy. you’ve um you’ve had a few weeks in a row where you’ve you know you’ve had like a day off each of those few weeks. Has that been have you viewed that as sort of like um critical is too strong a word but but needed to you know given all the injuries you’ve had to deal with this year? Uh I wouldn’t even say injury you know just rest day get a little extra rest day if anything and that’s it. What have you uh in your experiences of playing the Steelers, what have you learned about what it takes to win this game? Uh man, it’s a turnover battle game, you know. Um team who has the ball the most and put the most points on the board, that’s going to be the outcome of who win the game, basically, you know, and uh that’s all to it. But it’s a huge rivalry, man. Uh it’s like a playoff game, you know, and right now for the situation we’re in, it’s definitely a playoff game for us, you know, but it’s like if we wasn’t in a situation, it still be a playoff game for the just because of the rivalry. Yeah. How excited were you when the Mark Andrews contract got announced and you found out about that? Oh, I was I found out when I when I came back in the building the next day cuz I didn’t know, you know, I just heard him talking about I’m like what? Like that’s crazy, you know. I’m definitely definitely ecstatic. That’s my guy for sure. Lamar, at one point, I think last week or over the weekend, you clapped back at a radio guy in Pittsburgh. There’s been some criticism about you not being as as elusive as you’ve been. Is that talk bothering you or using as motivation? How are you handling it? Nah, you know, it’s always going to be noise, man. I feel like most of us NFL players are built off noise, you know, little adversity, uh little uh rivalry, little tactics they try to do, you know, but I don’t worry about it. Play football. Does it kind of fire you up a little bit? Does it does it add Absolutely. Absolutely. I get a kick out of Did it uh fire you up more that it was a Pittsburgh? I didn’t even know it was a Pittsburgh fan. You guys just telling me that. So that’s I understand now. I understand now. Why why like why uh why did you feel like you to your point like you hear criticism all the time and you know publicly or privately or whatever the case is. How come you felt the need to sort of hit back at this a little bit? Oh just because I was I just had got on the app and I seen it. I’m like bro. So I like just say less. That’s all. Lamar, what about where teams at? I mean both teams are six and six. You guys still have everything in front of you. you got, you know, just a thought about where things are headed. Uh, man, we just just got to focus on pitch right now. You know, like you said, we both six and six. Uh, great defense as always. Every time we play, it’s a great defense, you know. Um, and offense, I can say, you know, leading leading by Aaron Rogers, a future Hall of Famer. So, we just got to lock in and do what we supposed to do. You talked about, you know, the Cincinnati game not being happy with the turnovers and stuff. you get a step away from that like how do you how do you view that in terms of what you need to do to just make sure that those things don’t happen because it’s something you you know that doesn’t happen very often to you yeah man you know it’s unfortunate tip tip ball interception you know um a guy making a great play against oneey guys doing his job he’s trying to block you know but a guy made a great pass rush trying to get the ball a lot trying to pitch the machine if I could but hit my arm or me trying to throw the ball, put it back, fumble. I didn’t think that was a fumble, but it’s a fumble, I guess. Things like that. We can’t let that happen, you know, especially in a divisional game. Any game, not just a division game, but any game. But a lot of NFL games are won through turnover battles, you know, and that team had a lot of possessions we was getting off the field. So, that helped them out a lot. You know, they put points on the board. We didn’t, you know, got a touchdown called back. Stuff like that happens in those games. It’s hard to win those games. I mean, yeah, like you said, This is the your biggest rival with the Steelers. First place is on the line. I mean, as from your perspective, I mean, how big is this game for you? Every game is big. It don’t matter who we playing. You know, uh Cincinnati game is big to me. Um but this just it’s different because it’s the Steelers, you know, it’s a rival game. So, I know our crowds going to be popping out there um skin. You know, Flock Nation always, you know, it’s it’s like they playing football, too, you know. But you just got to lock in with these games. You talked about the turnovers a few times. I’m just curious how you as a as a team, how you go about trying to avoid turnovers, but also not trying to play too cautious and worrying about it, still playing your game. How do you kind of balance that? Uh, when you’re running the ball, when the ball is in your possession, you know, when guys are running around, you try to put two hands on the ball, the Ravenclaw. Um, but you got to play free at the same time, you can’t be thinking about, oh, I can’t I can’t fumble because I feel like that’ll mess with you. So, just play football. Lamar, with you getting stepped on on Wednesday, were you uh just not able to finish that practice or was it just fewer reps for you off on Wednesday? Uh it’s supposed to be a rest day anyways, you know, but yeah, on Wednesday, so you know, just wanted to chill out, you know, let my feet just rest because it I got stepped on. Thank you, Lamar. Your father.

Quarterback Lamar Jackson on Sunday’s game against the Steelers, his injuries this season, the importance of staying the course and more.

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