Four Pro Bowl nods and two MVP awards are no longer enough to safeguard Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. Now entering his 9th NFL season, he has three playoff runs under his belt, but that Lombardi Trophy has remained elusive as ever, and Jackson enters 2026 with a target on his back.

After last season’s 8-9 disaster, head coach John Harbaugh got the ax along with the rest of the coaching staff. New head coach Jesse Minter, offensive coordinator Declan Doyle, and defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver have already brought plenty of optimism to Baltimore, and per ESPN’s Louis Riddick, the onus is now on Lamar to prove the Ravens can contend in year 1 of their new leadership.

“If now it doesn’t work, and I don’t care if [Minter’s] a first-time head coach, I don’t care if this is just now – you need to give them a little bit of a grace period in order to kind of really acclimate to this new way of doing things,” Riddick said on First Take recently. “There is no grace period in Baltimore. And who’s going to be the person who all the attention is going to be focused on? It will be Lamar.

“It will be him because it’s always him. Because it’s always the quarterback, and his game will be picked apart from A to Z. He’s running too much; he’s not running enough. He’s getting hurt; he’s not a passer. Why is he running the football as much as he is? Why isn’t he throwing the football the way Caleb Williams threw the football in Chicago? Isn’t that where Declan came from? You can hear it now, all the different lines of criticism that are going to come his way. If this football team does not level up, he doesn’t level up, and they don’t experience some postseason success, you can predict it as plain as day.”

Now, Lamar Jackson’s dual-threat style is heavily ingrained into Baltimore football. But his health had been a lingering question throughout the 2025 season. He missed three games with a hamstring injury, and another one near the end of the season with a tailbone bruise. Coming back from that hamstring injury, he wasn’t the same. Across 13 games played, he had four outings where he couldn’t score a single touchdown – passing or otherwise. Those questions only intensified when the 26-24 loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers snatched the playoffs away from him.

Back in May, Lamar touted the new leadership of Jesse Minter and the rest of the coaching staff as “a breath of fresh air.” That optimism has been cultivated throughout the offseason, with players giving it their all and even outplaying Lamar at times. The latest training camp reports show that Jackson has made incredible connections with rookie WR Ja’Kobi Lane. Tight end Mark Andrews has also been separating himself from the rest of the squad with highlight plays. As for Jackson, he’s taken up an even bigger leadership role than before.

The optimism always flies high in the offseason. But the real test for Lamar Jackson & co. will come under the lights in September. If Jackson can prove last season’s disasters were a one-off, the Ravens can go back to their perennial playoff contention. Fail to do so, and he draws criticism from every voice around the league – something that’s already begun with Louis Riddick’s comments.