Lamar Jackson Vs. Josh Allen Remains Least Honest Debate In Sports | Bobby Burack
Josh Allen vs. Lamar Jackson is one of the most persistent debates in sports. The debate is silly. Obviously. There's no official ranking of how good a quarterback is. Both are great players. Coaches would jog in the blistering cold to coach either of them.
So you'd think the banter around the topic would be spirited but jesting. It's not. The debate often turns toxic.
See, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson play very specific roles for the sports media.
The likes of Robert Griffin III, Bomani Jones and Ryan Clark depict Jackson – despite contradicting evidence – as the underappreciated black underdog. They depict Allen – despite even more contradicting evidence – as benefiting from inherent racism within the NFL.
As a result, most pundits in the media side with Jackson over Allen. There's too much racial sensitivity around choosing Allen.
Chris "Mad Dog" Russo is the outlier. On Wednesday, he ranked Allen ahead of Jackson as the third-best quarterback in the NFL, behind Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. On the set with him sat Stephen A. Smith and Ryan Clark, chief race baiter among the many.
You can guess how the segment progressed:
You guessed correctly.
Analysts are entitled to their own opinion. But they are not entitled to their own facts. And facts lacked from Ryan Clark's defense of Lamar Jackson.
He argues that one cannot place Allen above Jackson because Allen "can't get past the Chiefs" in the postseason. Well, neither can Jackson.
Allen and Jackson, as in their teams, lost back-to-back weeks to the same Chiefs team in the playoffs this past season. Plus, Allen far outplayed Jackson against that same vaunted Kansas City defense.
Clark also faults Allen for missing a wide receiver late in the fourth quarter. Fair. However, Clark conveniently omitted that Jackson threw into triple coverage late in the fourth quarter, leading to a red zone pick, effectively ending the Ravens' season.
I mean, if we are going to cherry-pick certain plays to prove an argument…
Clark then cites that Jackson's play has "elevated" the Ravens during the regular season and "into the postseason." That sounds like a good argument.
Except, it's not true.
Jackson is 2-4 in postseason play. His passer rating is 75.7. He has thrown six touchdowns with six interceptions. He has completed less than 60 percent of his passes.
Let's contrast those statistics with Allen's postseason resume. Allen is 6-6. His passer rating is 100.0. He's thrown 21 touchdowns to just four interceptions. He has completed 65 percent of his passes.
By the numbers, Allen is the better playoff quarterback. It's not close.
Clark also omitted, while spewing about head-to-head matchups, Allen and Jackson faced off in the playoffs in 2020. Allen won. Jackson played poorly.
Now, do those data points definitively verify Allen as superior to Jackson? Of course, not. Again, the debate is unverifiable. It's not real. It's subjective.
However, the data points demonstrate how uninformed and compromised analysts are on said topic. Emotions are too high to discuss the two quarterbacks honestly.
Allen and Jackson have already been cast by the media. Allen is a white boy from Wyoming who once used the N-word on Twitter as a teen. Jackson is the first "authentic" black quarterback. At least according to Ryan Clark:
Yankees vs. Red Sox is fun. LeBron vs. Jordan divides us by the generations in which we were born. Ali vs. Tyson remains a captivating hypothetical.
Josh Allen vs. Lamar Jackson is now fodder for the racial battleground within the culture war.