Ravens head coach John Harbaugh asked Lamar Jackson if he wanted to go for it on a critical 4th down, and it was a brilliant ruse
- The Ravens went for it on a crucial 4th down against the Kansas City Chiefs.
- Before the play, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh asked Lamar Jackson if he wanted to go for it.
- The Ravens were already going to go for the win, but Harbaugh's ask was a smart show of leadership.
The Baltimore Ravens faced a big decision on Sunday night against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Ravens were staring down a fourth-and-1 from their 43-yard line with a 1-point lead and just over a minute to play.
The options were clear: 1) Punt the ball and give Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense roughly 50 seconds to march downfield for a potential game-winning field goal, or 2) Go for the fourth-down conversion, and seal the win with a single yard.
If the Ravens failed to pick up the fourth down, the Chiefs would take over possession, basically already in a position to kick the game-winner, but the risk of giving the ball back to the most dangerous player in football was just as daunting.
On the field, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh called out to quarterback Lamar Jackson.
"Lamar! Lamar! Do you want to go for it?" Harbaugh could be seen saying. "Alright, let's go."
The Ravens lined up with Jackson back in the shotgun. Jackson took the snap, waited for his blockers to make their push, and found a hole to fall forward for the first down, sealing the win for Baltimore.
After three straight losses against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, Jackson and the Ravens had officially tallied a win of their own on the board.
Looking back at that final play, Harbaugh's call out to Jackson comes across as a brilliant moment of trust between player and coach, but it was also something of a motivational tactic on the part of Harbaugh.
As former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck explained on "SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt" after the game, there was never any question as to whether or not the Ravens were going for it. However, in asking his player, Harbaugh helped light a fire under them for the biggest play of the game.
"Fourth and one, they're going for it," Hasselbeck said. "Harbaugh already knows that. That's coming from upstairs, saying we're going for it in this situation. And he looks at his quarterback - 'Do you want to go for it?'
"All of a sudden, think of the rallying cry - no, I asked my guys if they wanted to go, they did. Look at the reaction and celebration after winning that football game."
In his post-game press conference, Harbaugh nearly admitted as much.
"No, there wasn't," Harbaugh said when asked if there was any debate over going for it on fourth down. "I just, maybe I wanted to be sure myself, you know? I knew he was going to say yes. We were going for it at that point."
Jackson was on the same page during his post-game presser.
"He said, 'You want to go for it?' I said, 'Hell yeah!' Again, I said it again. Like Seattle two years ago. He told me the play, I'm like, 'Oh, you just read my mind.'
"Coach Urb, James Urban, my QB coach, he's like 'You gotta go!' I'm just like, man, I gotta get this first down no matter what. I gotta jump, dive through a defender - our O-line did a great job pushing those guys back, and we got the first down for the victory."
Examined together, the final sequence in Baltimore's win is a brilliant example of analytics, coach, and player acting like one. The team knew they were going for it. The coach knew his players would want to go and then put the decision on them.
When Lamar Jackson is your quarterback, it makes it easy to trust your offense.