Former MVPs Explain What Went Wrong With Ravens' Lamar Jackson

One thing every Baltimore Ravens fan can agree on is that quarterback Lamar Jackson had a disappointing 2025 season.

Jackson struggled to stay healthy, and on the field, he looked banged up from the way he played. He finished the season with a 63.3% completion percentage for 2,549 passing yards and another 349 rushing yards, scoring 23 total touchdowns with seven interceptions in 13 games.

Going into the offseason, everyone had their theories or explanations for why Jackson struggled so much in 2025 and why he never got it all together. A few of the most prominent voices at the quarterback position gave their own reasoning for Jackson's struggles.

Former NFL MVPs chime in on Lamar Jackson's 2025 season

ESPN Ravens reporter Jamison Hensley spoke with former NFL MVP quarterbacks Rich Gannon, Matt Ryan and Kurt Warner to explain what they saw. They all agreed that the blame can't be 100% on Jackson, since there were outside factors at play.

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson | Barry Reeger-Imagn Images

"My point is nobody's immune, and it's not just the sacks," Gannon said. "It's the hits, the hurries, the knockdowns. Eventually it can speed you up. I don't care how tough a guy you are, it can have an effect on your ability to sit in there and trust the protection."

"Oftentimes you have to trick yourself that regardless of what happened before, you've got to trust that people are going to do their job and people are going to pick up the protections," Ryan said. "And so you're constantly fighting that. But to say it doesn't affect you, it does. And the great ones find ways to, even when the numbers are down or even when the sacks are up, they still find a way to keep their team in the game and give themselves an opportunity late in the game."

"We can talk about the high-flying teams and the teams that throw it all over the field, but the best teams in the league continue to be the ones that win up front and the ones that prioritize, 'We're going to build it this way and that's where we're going to have our success,'" Warner said. "It still comes back to the teams that win in the trenches."

Jackson was not the only that suffered injuries as a big reason Baltimore started the year 1-5 was the injuries on both sides of the ball. For most of the season, Ravens players were playing banged up, which affected their performances.

The hope is that the 2026 season will go much differently for Jackson, and based on his past with two NFL MVPs to his resume, he should be able to get back to the franchise star Ravens fans have been accustomed to seeing.