2023 NFL season, Week 15 Update

 2023 NFL season, Week 15 UPDATE

2023 NFL season, Week 15: What We Learned from Sunday's games

1. Lamar’s ridiculousness, chemistry with Likely powers Ravens’ win. Baltimore just got a reminder of what it’s like to have Lamar Jackson available for the playoff push. The former most valuable player was electric Sunday night, his first time suiting up beyond Week 15 since 2020. He wasn’t perfect through the air, committing one bad interception and amassing just 171 passing yards on the night, but he consistently made chain-moving throws or left defenders in his wake on highlight-reel runs when the Ravens required it. Jackson paced Baltimore’s 251-yard rushing outing with 97 of his own. He combined the best he has to offer with his arm and legs on the play of the night when he shrugged off a Dawuane Smoot sack, dropped farther in the pocket to buy time and uncorked a long ball for Isaiah Likely to collect with a leaping grab between two defenders. The jaw dropper set up an eventual Gus Edwards touchdown to start off the final stanza, and it was also an indicator of the trust Jackson has brewing for his backup tight end. Likely led the team with five receptions and 70 yards. He was also the recipient of Jackson’s lone TD pass, a tight-window laser and the TE’s second score in as many weeks.
2. Mistake-prone Jags hit three-game skid. Jacksonville seemed hell bent on throwing this game away. The Jaguars reached the Baltimore 36-yard line or farther on four straight drives at one point, yet came away with a goose egg heading into halftime. The first two of those possessions ended with missed kicks by Brandon McManus, while Trevor Lawrence was responsible for bungling the latter two. First, while scrambling into the red zone, Lawrence seemingly juked himself out of the ball, fumbling it for Baltimore’s Arthur Maulet to scoop up. On the ensuing drive, a two-minute drill that reached the Ravens’ 5-yard line, the franchise QB woefully mismanaged the running clock after a 36-yard dime by forgoing a spike in favor of a shotgun pass to rookie Parker Washington, who gained 1 yard and stayed inbounds to send the clock to triple zeroes. Lawrence and Co. did play cleaner (comparatively) in the second half, but spotting the Ravens a 10-point lead with two quarters remaining proved too large a deficit. On a night when Lawrence looked surprisingly unbothered by his high ankle sprain suffered two weeks ago and the Rayshawn Jenkins-led defense gave Jacksonville a shot, the Jags still dropped their third straight. The top of the AFC South now has a three-way tie at 8-6 with three to go.
3. Baltimore continues taking care of business. Back in Week 11, all four AFC division leaders were surging toward the end of the season with three losses apiece. Since then, the Dolphins have lost one, the Chiefs have dropped two and the Jaguars are mired in a three-game losing streak. The Ravens? They’re now winners of four straight. Baltimore’s offense is relentless on the ground, having just eclipsed 200 yards for the second time this season and surpassed 100 yards rushing in every game this year. The defense has perfectly complemented that, especially Sunday night, when it bent and allowed the Jaguars offense to break. After giving the Jaguars long drives to start the night, the unit tightened as the game went down the stretch to limit them to three plays each on three of their final four possessions. The fourth ended in a turnover on downs. The Ravens are now officially the AFC’s first team in the playoffs. They should be brimming with confidence heading into two matchups that could be game-of-the-year caliber against the 49ers and Dolphins.

 

Next Gen stat of the game: Lamar Jackson’s 26-yard completion to Isaiah Likely in the third quarter included 7.24 seconds to throw, 1.3 yards of target separation and a 18.7% completion probability, Jackson’s second-most improbable completion in 2023.

 

NFL Research: With his strip-sack against the Jaguars, Justin Madubuike became the third player (since sacks became official in 1982) to have 0.5-plus sacks in 11 consecutive games within a season.