The critique on a franchise quarterback never ends. For Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, the latest one landed when former NFL general manager Steve Keim appeared on the Inside Football podcast a week ago and dropped a brutal verdict:

“My big picture concern is, as an older player – and Lamar is getting older – as the skills start to diminish to a degree, you got to start playing at that position faster with your mind, and that’s not his game,” Keim said.

That quote landed on the Locked on Ravens podcast on August 26th, Wednesday, and host Kevin Oestreicher all but called it a “disrespectful” claim. Then co-host and former Baltimore wide receiver Qadry Ismail called it “rage-bait” and went on to blast Keim by pointing out every single defense Jackson has outwitted.

“I think for Lamar Jackson, he knows the game has slowed down because of his due diligence,” Ismail said. “He knows that. ‘I’ve gone through Greg Roman’s system, Marty Mornhinweg before that. I’ve gone through Todd Monken’s system. I’ve excelled to the point where I was best in the league. That wasn’t just drop back to pass, oh, nobody’s there. I’m just going to run. Oh no, I’m not going through reads, I’m just going to willy-nilly throw it to somebody and hope they catch it.’

“‘No! It’s Brian Flores blitzing me and me having an amazing time with it. Blitzing me again, me struggling with it, blitzing me again and again, I’m like, ‘All right, bet. I figured you out.’ It’s going through a team where the Rams, the Broncos, the Lions I would say, 50/50 on the Steelers, the Texans, DeMeco Ryans, heck, New England Patriots- like defense teams that just… Vic Fangio sitting there like ‘Yo, I can’t just run any old thing on Lamar Jackson, I got to bring my A-Game.’ Come on, what are we talking about here?

This is absurd that you would think for some odd reason Lamar can’t… Todd Bowles, I’m sure, is saying to himself, ‘Mother of pearl, I had him ready; I’m a coordinator of coordinators, I’m a head coach because of my coordinating on the defensive side of the ball. Dang it! Prime time lights, Lamar Jackson shows up my defense. Kyle Shanahan and all his coordinators, they still having nightmares over the brilliant play of Lamar Jackson. Like, what are we saying? What are we trying to do here?”

Ismail also accuses Keim of trying to rekindle the old criticism Jackson once faced. But coming off an injury-laden season where Jackson missed time, Keim’s logic doesn’t track. In just 13 games last season, Jackson threw for 2,549 yards and 21 touchdowns, logging a career-best 13.3 yards per completion. Pushing past questions about his knee and durability, he even rushed for 349 yards and brought in two more touchdowns on the ground. But in the recent NFL Top 100 rankings, Lamar landed on No. 69, down 67 spots from his 2024 evaluation, so it’s not just Keim who’s placing him under scrutiny.

But Jackson has also carved out records and accolades in eight years that most quarterbacks don’t achieve across longer stints. 3 First-team All-Pros, 4 Pro Bowls, NFL passing touchdowns leader (2019), and NFL passer rating leader (2024) are just some of the things that make Jackson so dangerous. One bad season shouldn’t erase any of that.

This offseason, with new head coach Jesse Minter, Lamar feels “a breath of fresh air” in Baltimore, and that has already translated well through the roster beyond the QB1. But just like Steve Keim, many others have put Jackson on the stand for the 2026 season, with ESPN’s Louis Riddick being one of them.

“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 grace period in order to kind of really acclimate to this new way of doing things,” Riddick said 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.”

That attention Riddick spoke of has already taken center stage in and around Baltimore. We’re just two weeks away from the regular season kickoff when Lamar Jackson takes on the Indianapolis Colts. The real analysis begins from there, and it’s up to him to prove everybody wrong.