Ravens’ Lamar Jackson has his big playoff performance vs. Texans

The Baltimore Ravens are transferring on to the AFC Championship recreation after a dominant 34-10 win over the Houston Texans on Saturday afternoon. 

Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson delivered an MVP-worthy performance on offense, whereas the Ravens protection fully shut down rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud and the Texans offense.

Here are three takeaways from the Ravens’ big win.  

1. Lamar Jackson has a signature playoff performance

The big narrative coming into Saturday’s recreation for the Ravens was the very fact they have been solely 1-3 within the playoffs with Lamar Jackson as their beginning quarterback whereas his passer score had dropped 30 factors from his profession common season performance (from 98 within the common season right down to 68 within the playoffs).

Well, Jackson and the Ravens put all of that to relaxation on Saturday.

Jackson was not good, nevertheless it was by far the very best playoff recreation he has performed in his profession ending the day by going 16-for-22 with 152 yards, two landing passes, 100 yards dashing, two dashing touchdowns and most significantly, zero turnovers. 

Not solely did Jackson have very pedestrian numbers in his playoff profession total, he had thrown extra interceptions (5) than touchdowns (three) in his postseason profession going into Saturday. He wanted a recreation like this, and he delivered in a big means. Now he has the Ravens again within the AFC Championship recreation for the primary time because the 2012 season and is only one win away from reaching his first Super Bowl. 

The Ravens will host the winner of Sunday’s Buffalo Bills vs. Kansas City Chiefs recreation subsequent Sunday.

2. Texans made large mistake earlier than recreation even started

Houston didn’t do a lot proper on Saturday, and its errors started earlier than the opening kickoff. 

The Texans received the toss, and as an alternative of deferring their choice to the second half they determined to take the soccer and attempt to ship a message with their offense.

Instead, they went three-and-out, gave the ball to Baltimore and allowed the Ravens to march down the sphere for a 53-yard Justin Tucker discipline purpose to open the scoring. That choice would loom giant within the second half. The Texans had managed to wrestle all the momentum away from Baltimore within the second quarter and went into the half with a 10-10 recreation. But due to their choice to take the opening kickoff, Baltimore bought the soccer to begin the third quarter. That was when the sport fully flipped in Baltimore’s favor. A big kickoff return out towards mid-field gave the Ravens prime discipline place and resulted in a go-ahead landing on a Jackson run only a few performs later.

Baltimore by no means let up after that and took full management of the sport.

Would the sport have gone otherwise if Houston began the second half with the ball? Maybe not. But there isn’t any denying what it did for the Ravens. 

3. Ravens protection is dominant

As spectacular because the Ravens offense was on Saturday, the protection was the true story. They have been dominant in each sense of the phrase, fully shutting down the Texans’ operating recreation and always pressuring Stroud. They didn’t sack him, however he was by no means snug within the pocket and always attempting to scramble to make performs on the run. It didn’t work.

The Ravens completed the common season with the No. 1 scoring protection within the NFL and so they regarded the half on Saturday.

The solely factors Houston managed got here on a 51-yard discipline purpose and a 76-yard punt return by Steven Sims. Other than that, the Texans offense was non-existent. 

Even extra spectacular for Baltimore is it did that with out the providers of considered one of its high cornerbacks, Marlon Humphrey.

With that protection the Ravens are going to be a extremely troublesome crew to knock out this postseason if Jackson performs the best way he did on Saturday.