John Harbaugh already knew the answer to his question when the Baltimore Ravens had an opportunity to put away the Kansas City Chiefs. Fourth-and-1 at their own 43, up 36-35 with 1:05 left and the Chiefs out of timeouts, with Lamar Jackson at quarterback.
No brainer right?
“I bet they’re going for it, too, with Patrick Mahomes. How about that?” Harbaugh said with a laugh after the Ravens’ thrilling win over the Chiefs. ” There wasn’t (any doubt). But I think I wanted to be sure myself, you know? I knew he was going to say yes, but we were going for it at that point.”
If the Ravens failed to convert the fourth-and-1, the Chiefs would have had plenty of time to kick the game-winning field goal with patrick Mahomes at quarterback. Kansas City only needed a completion to get in Harrison Butker’s range and could have ran the clock down to a few seconds left for the kicker to hit the game-winner.
Harbaugh and Jackson weren’t leaving that to chance. Neither wanted Patrick Mahomes to get the ball back.
“In my mind, I was like, ‘Damn, we should go for it, because we’re close,'” Jackson said. “But then when I was going to the sideline, Coach [Harbaugh] was like, ‘Do you want to go for it?’ I was like, ‘Hell yeah! No doubt.’ And we did [go for it, and] we came out with success.”
The fourth down conversion capped an excellent performance for Jackson, who finished 18 of 26 for 239 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions, while rushing 16 times for 107 yards and two scores. Jackson recorded his ninth 100-yard rushing game, one behind Michael Vick for the most by a quarterback in NFL history. The Ravens improved to 9-0 when Jackson rushes for 100 yards.
Jackson had his second career game rushing for 100 yards and two touchdowns, joining Billy Kilmer (1961) as the only quarterbacks to have multiple such games (since 1950). The Ravens quarterback also checked off another box, beating the Chiefs.
“I’ll tell you; I’m just happy. I’m happy for him,” Harbaugh said. “We love each other. All of us have each other’s backs. We want to win every single game. So, whatever it means, it means. It means something different to all of us. It means something.
“I can tell you what it means to me. It means a lot to me. But you know what? We have the Lions coming up in seven days, and we’re going to be thinking about that really soon.”
