Discussions around Lamar Jackson’s outlook for this season have typically come with requisite caveats for expected impending regression. Jackson’s performance in 2019 was awesome, but it was also an incredible outlier—he not only set a record for QB rushing yards (1,206), but paced the league in both touchdown passes (36) and touchdown rate (9 percent), the latter of which, as history tells us, is almost sure to decline in 2020.
But as I wrote last week, the league has never really seen a quarterback quite like Jackson. And if his Week 1 performance told us anything, it’s that he’s the exact type of player who could set a new precedent.