The comparison was logical and inevitable, and the Monday Night Football broadcast team did not fumble it. Lamar Jackson as Willis Reed.
Different game. Different century. But accurate—to a point.
May 8, 1970. The game the NBA cannot forget. Captain Willis Reed limping onto the court for Game 7 of the Finals, dragging his leg with the torn thigh muscle that had kept him out of Game 6. He made a dramatic entrance into Madison Square Garden and infused the never-champion New York Knicks with an emotion that carried them over the perennial-champion Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers halted their warmup to stare.
“When I saw that,” guard Walt Frazier said, “something told me we might have these guys.” And have them the Knicks did but not because Reed provided much offense. Theatrical inspiration seemed to be involved. He hit his first two shots and that was it. He contributed by defending Wilt Chamberlain, providing an emotional shot of adrenalin from the big, beating heart of a champion.
Reed received pain-killer injections to hobble onto the court and play. The reason was simple. “I didn’t,” Reed would explain, “want to have to look at myself in the mirror 20 years later and say, I wished I had tried to play.”
Cut to the National Football League. Cleveland Browns-Baltimore Ravens heavyweight bout Monday night, December 14, 2020, at First Energy Stadium. Neither team could stop the other’s quarterback, Baker Mayfield for the Browns and NFL Most Valuable Player Lamar Jackson for the Ravens. Then suddenly Jackson was gone, vanished but not vanquished, to the Baltimore locker room to be administered fluids for cramping.
In his absence Mayfield and friends erased a 34-20 deficit to take a 35-34 lead that almost made a person forget that after five games of taking care of the football like it was a newborn, Mayfield threw an interception that had helped put the Ravens on top.
Trace McSorley, second-year thrower to Jackson’s runner, struggled to hold the fort and then near the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter went down with an ankle injury. Who would play quarterback? You know the answer: Lamar Jackson as Reed. He even sounded like Reed afterward: “I need something to help me get better really quick, because this is a crucial game. Both teams are playing their hearts out.”
If telephone booths were not so difficult to find these days, especially on NFL sidelines, Jackson might have jumped into one and reappeared as his alter ego—Superman. Instead he trotted back from the locker room to the sideline as cameras captured his reemergence in the nick of time to stretch and replace McSorley. But now, Jackson would have to rely on his arm, not exactly an appendage of the same quality as his legs. In the first half he completed only 3-of-6 passes for 53 yards while running for 78. No matter. When he returned to the game, his arm was suddenly golden.
“If you wrote a movie about this,” Ravens Coach John Harbaugh said, “people wouldn’t believe it.” Of course, they should. Harbaugh’s team hardly ever loses to Cleveland.
Baltimore receivers such as Marquise Brown, who had been dropping everything thrown his way, caught Jackson’s first pass on a fourth-and-five play and went 44 yards to score. That set up a two-point conversion that put Baltimore back in front 42-35. Mayfield (28-of-47, 343 yards, 2 TDs, 1INT, 87.5 rating) answered too quickly. With four straight completions, the last two to Kareem Hunt who finished with a 22-yarder, as he dove over the end zone front pylon for the touchdown and a 42-42 tie.
There was 1:04 left and against a defense without a clue much less an answer, Jackson completed 4-of-5 passes to leave the most accurate kicker in NFL history, Justin Tucker, a 55-yard field goal into the gauntlet of the Dawg Pound end zone; Tucker made it with two seconds to spare. The Browns used those to launch a desperation lateral fire drill that cost them a safety. Final: Baltimore 47, Cleveland 42.
Even in a blog post for all my non-readers, I would not normally put the score near the conclusion. I did the unorthodox on this occasion because the outcome is full of hope, not despair. The Browns took on Superman and a desperate but good team and proved they not only belong in this august company but that they can win against it.
The Browns have their quarterback and an offense hitting, with the occasional misfire, on all cylinders. It needs no major pieces, which should allow the front office to concentrate on doing for the defense what it has done for the offense. Kevin Stefanski could not help but notice the need after the dust off by Superman who “shouldn’t have been able to escape the pocket” but was almost always able to do so. This, as Stefanski so mildly put it, was “disappointing.”
The defense was missing pieces of the defensive backfield—safety Grant Delpit and cornerback Greedy Williams, who have been absent all season because of injuries—and others who have not been available on occasion, either due to injury or COVID-19 protocols. A slick field was about the only thing able to bring down Lamar Jackson.
The team looks like a half-built vehicle. It is missing a wheel, some chrome, and brakes that it can apply to an offense whose quarterback has not improved his throwing enough to beat it from behind. Mayfield can emerge the more complete quarterback of the two, even if he is not as good an athlete and right now can only tug on Superman’s cape.
But wait. Just wait. And as you do, put this game in the memory bank. It was a harbinger.
