BALTIMORE — This will be the first true “legacy game” for Lamar Jackson, eyeball-to-eyeball with Patrick Mahomes for a berth in Super Bowl LVIII.
Mahomes has twice taken the Chiefs to the top of the football mountain, and now defends the crown that Jackson desperately wants and needs to be King, after all these years as Prince of Baltimore.
Dan Marino didn’t need to win a Super Bowl to glide into the Hall of Fame, and with Jackson eyeing his second NFL MVP, he may not either.
But for these three hours beginning Sunday at 3 p.m., Jackson will have this dream chance to knock Mahomes off his throne for the next dream chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy for the first time, Feb. 11 inside Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Game of thrones.
Mahomes, still young enough and great enough at 28 to aspire to chase down Tom Brady’s seven Super Bowl championships, has had his moments.
This is Lamar Jackson’s moment.
This is his first time standing 60 minutes from a Super Bowl, against the wondrous improvisational gunslinger who knows no fear in enemy territory, when an entire city is against him the way it will be on this afternoon.
This Lamar Jackson can thread the needle over defenseless critics with his arm as well as eluding them with his legs.
This is the Lamar Jackson that former NFL quarterback and current Fox Sports NFL analyst Michael Vick envisioned when he first saw him at Louisville.
“I was always looking for that next guy who looked like me,” Vick told The Post, “and when I seen Lamar, I instantly felt like that was it when I watched him when he was at Louisville.”
The arrival of offensive coordinator Todd Monken and additions of rookie Zay Flowers, and fellow wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Nelson Agholor has made for the perfect storm, and Jackson is the eye of that ragin’ Ravens tempest.
“I think Patrick Mahomes has the same style as Lamar Jackson,” Vick said. “I just think Lamar Jackson might run a faster 40-yard dash, can get in and out of traffic a little faster than Patrick. But Patrick can turn the jets on when it’s time to turn ’em on, and he can run and get away from guys when he needs to.”
You take a bathroom break at the risk of witnessing magic. … a no-look pass from Mahomes, or a Houdini escape from the pocket … a great escape from Jackson followed by a tackle-me-if-you-can romp … or the kind of precision throw that misguided doubters who viewed him as a receiver coming out of college didn’t believe he had in his repertoire.
“I always knew he had the ability to pass the football,” Vick said. “It’s good to see him doing it at a high level, because he’s preserving his body and getting everybody around him the ball.”
A 60-minute star war. Mahomes won their first three showdowns before Jackson prevailed 36-35 at home in 2021.
Vick was a human highlight reel who followed Randall Cunningham and is proud that he helped be a pioneer who paved the way for the dual-threat quarterback.
“The evolution of the position, you see things that I thought I would never see when I was fighting to be a mobile quarterback and a dual threat quarterback,” Vick said. “If you go back and look at magazines from 2005, I was on the cover of Sports Illustrated saying, ‘I am a quarterback,’ and I was fighting for this moment. You look at these guys who can do it all now, man, and it just makes the game more exciting.”
Marty Mornhinweg, who coached Vick under Andy Reid in Philadelphia, was the Ravens offensive coordinator from 2016-18.
“He told me before the draft that he was going to take Lamar if he was sitting at 32 in the draft,” Vick said.
The Ravens traded up for the Eagles’ 32nd pick for Jackson. “And I told him he probably would never regret that, or that organization,” Vick said, “and now you see what they got.”
Vick is looking forward to reconnecting with the 27-year-old MVP quarterback he helped mentor.
“I can’t say he was upset, he never said he was upset, but I just know when I wanted him to get back out there and play last year when his knee was hurt, which I felt he could win on one leg versus anybody,” Vick said. “We haven’t really spoke since then. It’s no friction or animosity. That’s my little brother, so I’m excited to watch him play this weekend.”
It was in November of Jackson’s 2019 MVP season when coach John Harbaugh crouched down to his Lamarvelous quarterback seated on the bench during an explosion against the Bengals and told him:
“You changed the game, man. You know how many little kids in this country are going to be wearing No. 8 playing quarterback for the next 20 years?”
And Jackson responded:
“I can’t wait to see it. When I get older. … But right now I got to get to the Super Bowl.”
Right now he has to get to the Super Bowl, because it would be a rightful homage to his greatness.
“I can’t wait to watch it,” Vick said. “You got the best versus the best.”
Game of thrones.
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