Lamar Jackson’s playoff woes continued in the Divisional Round as the quarterback couldn’t overcome the Buffalo Bills, losing 27-25.
Despite another year of mind-blowing regular-season performances, the Baltimore Ravens failed to make a deep playoff run. Patrick Mahomes’ former teammate Mitchell Schwartz pinpointed the major issue with Jackson’s postseason performance.
Mitchell Schwartz Highlights the Reasons Behind Lamar Jackson’s Playoff Issues
After a fantastic season, Jackson is considered the favorite to take home the NFL MVP for the third time in his career. Many expected the 28-year-old to keep a similar level of production in the playoffs, but it was another year of disappointment.
After the Ravens were eliminated, many pointed their fingers at Jackson. The four-time Pro Bowler has had his supporters too.
Schwartz took to X (formerly Twitter) to analyze Jackson’s playoffs.
“He is inarguably worse in the postseason than in the regular season, where his baseline is MVP level play. That’s a large part of the disappointment in his performances,” the 2020 Super Bowl winner tweeted.
After having watched the Lamar discourse go off the rails the last few days I’m struck by a few things:
1) He is inarguably worse in the postseason than in the regular season, where his baseline is MVP level play. That’s a large part of the disappointment in his performances!
— Mitchell Schwartz (@MitchSchwartz71) January 21, 2025
Schwartz did not limit himself to the word limit of the platform and let his analysis flow. The former offensive lineman utilized seven tweets to get his points across.
“The big one: He can have had a disappointing playoff start but that doesn’t mean he’s never going to succeed and win a championship. It’s more likely than not he will! I haven’t seen ppl say this is who he will be the rest of his career and that he won’t have playoff success,” he tweeted.
3) The big one: He can have had a disappointing playoff start but that doesn’t mean he’s never going to succeed and win a championship. It’s more likely than not he will! I haven’t seen ppl say this is who he will be the rest of his career and that he won’t have playoff success.
— Mitchell Schwartz (@MitchSchwartz71) January 21, 2025
Schwartz warned fans not to trust everything being said on TV about Jackson. He added that he is a fervent believer in Jackson’s abilities. Still, there are issues regarding the playoffs that drop his performance levels when compared to his regular-season output.
“Those are my takeaways. He HAS been worse in the playoffs because his baseline is MVP level play. He DID have two huge turnovers and otherwise great play doesn’t entirely make up for that.”
“But that doesn’t mean he won’t have high level playoff success! We just haven’t seen it yet,” Schwartz wrote in final tweet of the thread.
Those are my takeaways. He HAS been worse in the playoffs because his baseline is MVP level play. He DID have two huge turnovers and otherwise great play doesn’t entirely make up for that. But that doesn’t mean he won’t have high level playoff success! We just haven’t seen it yet
— Mitchell Schwartz (@MitchSchwartz71) January 21, 2025
After the loss, much was made about Mark Andrews’ drop on the two-point conversion being responsible for the Ravens losing.
While Jackson refused to blame his tight end for the loss, he showed off his frustration in an expletive-laden response. In all likelihood, he was referring to his own lost fumble but turnovers in general were the target of Baltimore ire after the game.
“Can’t have that s***. As you can see, we’re moving the ball wonderfully. Hold on to the f****** ball. Sorry for the language but this s*** is annoying. Tired of this s***,” he said.
