Was Lamar Jackson looking at the Chiefs instead of Titans?

Lamar Jackson recently said the Ravens lost last postseason because they were overlooking the Titans.

If Lamar Jackson is telling the truth, no one could blame him.

Heading into last January, the Baltimore Ravens were the popular pick to run the tables and represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, if not win it outright. They sat atop NFL Power Rankings for every media outlet for nearly the entire season and rightfully so given their place atop the standings in the AFC North and their ability to secure a top seed in the conference. From the strong defense front to back to the exciting offense captained by Lamar Jackson, the Ravens looked the part of a Super Bowl winner.

Then just as quickly as their postseason began, the Ravens were ousted. After a regular season in which they went 14-2 overall, the Ravens lost to the Tennessee Titans in the divisional round—the first playoff contest for Baltimore given their first round bye. Just like that, a 12-game winning streak was halted. Championship dreams were postponed another year. The Ravens were going to sit at home like nearly everyone else.

Looking back at the Titans loss, Jackson has spoken out a couple times this offseason about the performance. At first, he said he was “puzzled” by it in an interview in March at the 101 Awards.

"“I’m like, ‘I don’t know what happened.’ Like, we had good plays. We had good drives. We’ll hit a hump one play. They steal the momentum, and it’s, you know, the NFL is like a momentum game. Like, whoever’s got momentum, they’re going to score points. They might come out with a victory, and that’s what it was.”"

Then this past week, Jackson was interviewed by Complex and pinned the loss on overlooking the Titans as an opponent. Somehow with two weeks to prepare, Jackson and the rest of the Ravens were still not ready to face the Titans. Instead their heads were elsewhere.

"“That’s what happened in the playoffs, and we end up losing to the team people had us favored over,” Jackson said. “It’s any given Sunday. You can’t underestimate no team, no opponent and that’s what we did. … They caught us by surprise. That’s all it was.”"

The question needs to be asked, then: who exactly was Jackson thinking about? If he wasn’t focused on the Titans, who was he focused upon? Could it be the Kansas City Chiefs? If so, you can’t blame him or the rest of the roster for doing so.

The Chiefs and Ravens were perhaps the NFL’s two most exciting teams in 2020. Their early season matchup in Week 3—a Chiefs win, by the way—was called a preview of a potential AFC final, and some analysts believed a Baltimore v. Kansas City contest in the AFC Championship was inevitable. They weren’t the only ones.

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh already came out and said he disagreed with Jackson. “I don’t think we took them lightly, personally. We just didn’t play well,” he told reporters on Monday. Maybe that’s the case. But Jackson’s quotes allude to some element of mental and emotional energy being spent away from their immediate opponent, perhaps on a bigger challenge to come—if only they could have gotten there.