Stephen A. Smith delivered a scathing review of Lamar Jackson’s performance against the Kansas City Chiefs, stating that he’ll never win a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens if he can’t beat Patrick Mahomes.
The Chiefs began their bid for a third straight Super Bowl with a thrilling 27-20 victory over the Ravens on Thursday night.
Baltimore thought it had tied the score at 27-27 with zero seconds left on the clock, but tight end Isaiah Likely caught Jackson’s pass out of bounds with his toe.
Jackson put in an inspiring performance to keep the Ravens in the game, but he painfully miscued an earlier pass to Likely in the end zone and also missed a wide-open pass from Zay Flowers.
With Thursday’s loss to Mahomes, Jackson is now 1-5 against the Chiefs star. Their previous meeting came in last season’s AFC Championship game, when the Ravens lost at home.
Stephen A. Smith Claims Lamar Jackson Is Still Below Rival Patrick Mahomes
Smith said on his own YouTube show Friday that Jackson had proven once again that he’s not on the same level as Mahomes and feared for his chances of ever beating the Chiefs quarterback again.
He said, “Lamar Jackson looks spectacular if you just look at the numbers, but you have to look at the outcome. When the game was on the line, he couldn’t make the throw he needed to make.
“Call it what you want. Lamar Jackson — as big and superstar and improved passer as he is — there are levels to this.
“If you look at that record and you had a chance to erase it and you missed a pass to Likely in the left corner of the end zone. You knocked him over. He’s 6.4 and you still knocked him over.
“The biggest miss was Zay Flowers. Wide open, nobody within seven yards of him, and Lamar Jackson missed it by five yards. It was close. It was such a terrible throw, such a bad miss.
‘I don’t know if the Ravens win the game or not, because even after John Harbaugh scored the touchdown, he still went for two points. So it’s quite possible that they got stopped on the two-point conversion and lost the game.
Jackson missed throws to Zay Flowers and Isaiah Likely at key moments in the fourth quarter
Jackson eventually found Likely for a dramatic late touchdown, but his toe was out of bounds
But here’s the thing: Superstar Lamar Jackson, who had the game on the line and had the ball in his hands, made two bad throws that we all know Patrick Mahomes would have made.
“He’s going to have to do better and the Baltimore Ravens are going to have to do better. Their defense was out of whack, there were multiple missed assignments, don’t even get me started on the illegal formation calls against them.
“But Patrick Mahomes had a good game and you’ve got to figure out how to be a bunch of roughriders on defense. They’ve got a lot of work to do on defense and offense.
‘But either way, the biggest story you take away from this game is that Lamar Jackson, the superstar that he is, still comes up just a little bit short against Patrick Mahomes.
“How are they going to win the Super Bowl in the Lamar Jackson era if they can’t beat Patrick Mahomes, especially in the biggest moments?”
Smith also criticized the Ravens for not bringing in new running back Derrick Henry, saying they “should have gotten another receiver” if they weren’t going to use him to his full potential.
According to NBC, the thrilling season opener between the Chiefs and Ravens was the NFL’s most-watched opening game ever. Data shows that viewership peaked at 33 million in the second quarter.
Taylor Swift watched Travis Kelce and the Chiefs hold on for a win on NFL opening night
Fans couldn’t wait to see the return of football and were also eager to catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift as she returned to Arrowhead Stadium to see her boyfriend Travis Kelce in action.
The game averaged 28.9 million viewers across NBC and streaming service Peacock, beating last season’s season opener — in which the Detroit Lions upset the Chiefs — by five percent.
Swift stunned in a denim outfit and thigh-high boots as she sat down next to Kelce’s father, Ed. Swift later sat next to his mother, Donna.
The New York Post published photos showing the couple boarding a flight to New York on Friday.
Kelce was seen wearing a baseball cap, T-shirt and shorts, but his girlfriend used an umbrella to prevent photographers from capturing her face.
The couple have been spotted together in New York before. In October 2023, they made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live before heading to dinner at the Waverley Inn.
